Register Login

Public Health Review

Search
The PHR logo of a maroon lettering on a yellow globe sitting atop a decorative diagonal sash. On the left is one photo example of houses in an advantaged neighborhood while a photo example of housing that might be found in a structurally under-resourced community PDF

Published

2021-12-18

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2021)

Section

Special Focus Pieces

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Bryce Dorff

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

All articles published in the Public Health Review are distributed with a Creative Commons Noncommercial Attribution license (CC BY-NC 4.0). This means that each author holds the copyright to their work, and grants users the rights to: share (copy and/or redistribute the material in any medium or format) or adapt (remix, transform, and/or build upon the material) the article, as long as the original author and source are cited, and the use is for noncommercial purposes. Permission is not needed for these noncommercial uses. Read the summary terms, or the full legal license code.

Incidence of Neural Tube Defects among Hispanic Individuals of Childbearing in a Rural Southwestern Wisconsin County

Bryce Dorff

University of Minnesota - Public Health Student

Abstract

Neural tube defects are a heavily researched and mostly preventable birth defect. However, the odds of neural tube defects are higher for Hispanic fetuses. In a rural southwestern Wisconsin county they were ten times higher than the national average of 6 per 10,000 births. Many factors contribute to increased neural tube defect odds, though fortifying foods with folic acid which was mandated for flour-based products in 1998, reduced incidence of neural tube defects across the nation by 35%. However, the rate of neural defects for Hispanic fetuses after the 1998 mandate did not decrease in the same rate as White fetuses. Because corn-based products may constitute a large proportion of Hispanic diets, and not flour-based products, many Hispanic individuals do not receive the same public health primary prevention effort in the folic acid fortification mandate. With data highlighting the stark inequities in birthing outcomes, legislators have a unique opportunity to join the public health movement toward equity and justice for all birthing persons by adding corn-based products in the fortification mandate.

Image of University M logo with text Libraries Publishing

Contact Publishing Services | Acceptable Use of IT Resources

The copyright of these individual works published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing remains with the original creator or editorial team. For uses beyond those covered by law or the Creative Commons license, permission to reuse should be sought directly from the copyright owner listed on each article.