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Health official cites behavioral change as key to raising low birth weights.(Brief Article)
2002 SEP 26 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The problem of low birth weight is growing in America's largest cities and suburbs, according to a new study, but a health official from the city with the smallest ratio of low birth weights stressed that lifestyle changes - particularly smoking cessation - have made a difference there.
Lillian Shirley, director of the Multnomah County Health Department in Portland, Oregon, pointed to smoking as the culprit for 30% of babies born below the optimal birth weight and added that a community approach to fighting smoking and secondhand smoke has helped Portland. She said that community involvement is a core element to health goals her city has met.
"The public health picture isn't a still-life, it's dynamic. This achievement reflects the lifestyle of our entire community," Shirley said. "Promoting exercise, healthy diet in the community - these efforts can make a difference."
Portland's data were included in a report on seven of the goals outlined in the federal government's Healthy People reports. In 1999, 5.4% of Portland's babies were born below optimal birth weight - a percentage that exceeded the goal of 5% or less. The report examined the rate of low birth rates, as well as other diseases and conditions, in the nation's 100 largest cities and their suburbs. As of 1999, none of the cities studied - and only two of the suburban areas - had met that goal. That compares with 1990, when 14 of the tallied suburbs had met the 2000 goal.
"While cities [compared with suburbs] still have high low birth weights, the gap is narrowing," said Dennis P. Andrulis, one of the authors of "Healthy Cities, Healthy Suburbs," the first of four studies from Brooklyn's SUNY Downstate Medical Center to examine health issues among urban and suburban communities. "There are troubling new patterns around low birth weight. Many suburbs lost ground."
Andrulis ...
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Source: HighBeam Research, Health official cites behavioral change as key to raising low birth...