Assessing individual, community, and financial factors in birth outcomes and associated health disparities

近年来，美国各地的市县都通过了当地的最低工资政策(LMW)，制定了 将最低工资标准提高到每小时15美元或更高，以努力缩小日益扩大的差距 联邦最低工资门槛和当地生活成本之间的差距。这些LMW已经提高了赌注 回答了关于提高最低工资影响的悬而未决的问题，以及 尤其是在人口健康的最早先期指标上，出现了如此规模的增长。也就是说，做一些改变 最低工资-特别是低工资-导致低收入家庭经济福祉的增加，这可能 被观察为出生结果的改善；这些政策有助于缓解机会不平等还是 它们实际上对个人和社区产生了减少甚至负面的后果 历史上经历过的歧视；最低工资的这些变化是否会产生类似的模式 在一些经济结果上扩大或缩小差异，而不是其他表明这些 结果将这些政策与扩大或缩小生育结果中的社会不平等联系在一起。使用来自以下地点的微数据 美国生命统计监测系统出生证明登记和当前人口调查，这 该项目旨在(1)研究最低工资政策，特别是低工资(市和县)政策对 出生结果的变化；(2)确定这些政策对出生结果的影响是否被 个人和社区特征(即母亲的种族/族裔和出生地、劳动力市场条件和 居民机会不平等)或社区接触政策的持续时间；以及(3) 评估最低工资政策，特别是低工资对经济结果的影响(例如， 收入、贫困、医疗保险、失业)，以及这些影响的潜在异质性 团体和地方，帮助解释最低工资政策所通过的社会经济机制 会影响生育结果。该项目通过改编和扩展尖端准实验进行创新 构建有效的反事实控制的技术，以控制在没有变化的情况下会发生什么 最低工资政策。总之，拟议项目涉及几个非常重要但未得到充分研究的问题， 关于最低工资政策对健康影响的问题。这项工作的发现也将对更广泛的 关于劳动力市场政策干预健康的社会决定因素的可能性的问题，可能 改善产前和婴儿健康，这可以为身体健康提供终身和代际利益 健康和社会经济成果。

In recent years, cities and counties across the U.S. have passed local minimum wage policies (LMW) that set minimum wage standards to upwards of 15 dollars per hour or more in an effort to close widening gaps between federal minimum wage thresholds and local cost of living. These LMW have raised the stakes considerably for answering outstanding questions about the impact of minimum wage increases, and particularly increases of this magnitude, on the earliest antecedents of population health. Namely, do changes in minimum wages – and particularly LMW– lead to gains in low-income families' economic wellbeing that can be observed as improvements in birth outcomes; do these policies help alleviate inequality of opportunity or do they actually have diminished or even negative consequences for individuals and communities that have historically experienced discrimination; and do these changes in minimum wages produce similar patterns of widening or narrowing differences on some economic outcomes and not others that suggests that these outcomes link the policies to widening or narrowing social inequalities in birth outcomes. Using microdata from the U.S. Vital Statistics Surveillance System birth certificate registries and Current Population Survey, this project aims to (1) examine the effect of minimum wage policy, and particularly LMW (city and county), on change in birth outcomes; (2) determine whether effects of these policies on birth outcomes are modified by individual and community characteristics (i.e., mother's race/ethnicity and nativity, labor market conditions and residential inequality of opportunity) or the duration of the community's exposure to the policies; and (3) evaluate whether the impact of minimum wage policies, and LMW in particular on economic outcomes (e.g., income, poverty, health insurance, unemployment), and the potential heterogeneity of these impacts across groups and localities, help explain the socioeconomic mechanisms through which minimum wage policy impacts birth outcomes. The project innovates by adapting and extending cutting-edge quasi-experimental techniques to construct a valid counterfactual control for what would have happened in absence of a change in minimum wage policy. In sum, the proposed project addresses several highly significant, but understudied, questions about the health effects of minimum wage policy. Findings from this work will also speak to broader questions about the potential for labor market policies to intervene on social determinants of health, potentially improving prenatal and infant health, which can provide life-long and intergenerational benefits for physical health and socioeconomic outcomes.