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MDHHS issues report on Asian and Pacific Islander Maternal and Infant Health

For Immediate Release: May 12, 2016

LANSING, Mich. – The Asian and Pacific Islander (API) populations are some of the fastest growing racial/ethnic groups in Michigan. As part of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ continued focus on increasing knowledge about the health and related health disparities of racial and ethnic minorities, the department conducted an analysis to compare pregnancy characteristics and birth outcomes within the API populations in Michigan.

The 2016 report provides important data that allow for the comparison of maternal and infant outcomes by specific API ethnic groups. Birth data was analyzed for larger API groups such as Asian Indian, Chinese, and Korean but also smaller groups such as Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Bangladeshi, and Burmese. The full report, “Pregnancy and Infant Health Indicators among Asian and Pacific Islanders within the State of Michigan: 2016 Report” presents the results of 14 indicators related to maternal and infant health.

Many of the smaller API ethnic groups including Hmong, Laotian, Bangladeshi, and Burmese had maternal and pregnancy characteristics that varied from the overall API population. More mothers in these groups were unmarried, had not graduated from high school, intended to use Medicaid as payment for birth, or did not receive prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy than the overall API population. The Vietnamese, Pacific Islander, and groups that could not be categorized also followed a similar trend as the smaller API groups. In spite of these differences, pregnancy outcomes in these groups did not appear to differ from the overall API outcomes.

Results demonstrate disparities exist both within Michigan’s API population and between this diverse group and Michigan’s overall population. When these data are grouped, important differences especially among smaller ethnic groups are lost.

A summary report entitled “Health Status of Asian/Pacific Islander Adults in Michigan” was created to accompany the full report. Both of the reports are available online at: www.michigan.gov/minorityhealth.

The project was supported by the MDHHS Health Disparities Reduction and Minority Health Section to improve the availability of data for racial and ethnic minorities, and conducted in partnership with the MDHHS Lifecourse Epidemiology and Genomics Division.

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