Neighborhood-level poverty at menarche and prepregnancy obesity in African-American women

Introduction. menarche is a critical time point in a woman's reproductive system development; exposures at menarche may influence maternal health. living in a poorer neighborhood is associated with adult obesity; however,little is known if neighborhood factors at menarche are associated with prepregnancy obesity. methods. we examined the association of neighborhood-level poverty at menarche with prepregnancy body mass index category in 144 pregnant african-american women. address at menarche was geocoded to census tract (closest to year of menarche); neighborhood-level poverty was defined as the proportion of residents living under the federal poverty level. cumulative logistic regression was used to examine the association of neighborhood-level poverty at menarche,in quartiles,with categorical prepregnancy bmi. results. before pregnancy,59 (41%) women were obese. compared to women in the lowest neighborhood-level poverty quartile,women in the highest quartile had 2.9 [1.2,6.9] times higher odds of prepregnancy obesity; this was slightly attenuated after adjusting for age,marital status,education,and parity (odds ratio: 2.3 [0.9,6.3]). conclusions. living in a higher poverty neighborhood at menarche is associated with prepregnancy obesity in african-american women. future studies are needed to better understand the role of exposures in menarche on health in pregnancy. © 2016 andrea e. cassidy-bushrow et al.