Vanishing twins, spared cohorts, and the difference in birthweight between the frailest White and Black infants in the United States
Data files
Aug 22, 2024 version files 27.84 KB
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README.md
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Vanishing_twins_data.txt
Abstract
Infants born before completing 26 weeks of gestation account for less than 1% of live births in the United States but more than 40% of infant deaths. The rate of these “periviable” births among non-Hispanic (NH) Blacks exceeds 4 times that among NH Whites. Among periviable infants, small males die most frequently. The mean birthweight of NH White periviable male singletons persistently exceeds that of their NH Black counterparts. The scientific literature includes no explorations of mechanisms that could explain this disparity in birth weight. We offer, and test, the argument that survivors of the vanishing twin syndrome, a phenomenon in which the slower-growing fetus of a twin pair dies in utero, contribute to the disparity. Among male periviable singleton births from 288 monthly conception cohorts (1/95 through 12/2018), we found an average NH White advantage of 30 grams (759g versus 729g). Consistent with our argument, however, cohorts with relatively few survivors of the vanishing twin syndrome showed no disparity.
README: Vanishing twins, spared cohorts, and the difference in birthweight between the frailest White and Black infants in the United States
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xksn02vp9
Description of the data and file structure
The data are time series for 288 months beginning January 1995 and ending December 2018.
The variable dictionary is as follows.
Variable Dictionary
tperimwN=count of periviable male Nhwhite twins
tperimwN=count of periviable male NHwhite twins
tperifbN=count of periviable female NHblack twins
tperifbN=count of periviable female NHblack twins
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spmumwbw=mean birthweight for singleton nhwhite males
spmdmwbw=median birthweight for singleton nhwhite males
spp1mwbw= first percentile birthweight for singleton nhwhite males
spp5mwbw =fifth percentile birthweight for singleton nhwhite males
spmufwbw=mean birthweight for singleton nhwhite females
spmdfwbw=median birthweight for singleton nhwhite females
spp1fwbw= first percentile birthweight for singleton nhwhite females
spp5fwbw =fifth percentile birthweight for singleton nhwhite females
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spmumbbw=mean birthweight for singleton nhblack males
spmdmbbw=median birthweight for singleton nhblack males
spp1mbbw= first percentile birthweight for singleton nhblack males
spp5mbbw =fifth percentile birthweight for singleton nhblack males
spmufbbw=mean birthweight for singleton nhblack females
spmdfbbw=median birthweight for singleton nhblack females
spp1fbbw= first percentile birthweight for singleton nhblack females
spp5fbbw =fifth percentile birthweight for singleton nhblack females
Sharing/Access information
Data were provided to us by the US National Center of Health Statistics (NCHS), Division of Vital Statistics.
Code/Software
NA