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Revisiting the Association between Race, Ethnicity, and Beliefs about Pregnancy
Author(s) -
Meredith Manze,
Diana Romero
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ethnicity and disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.767
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1945-0826
pISSN - 1049-510X
DOI - 10.18865/ed.30.4.525
Subject(s) - pregnancy , ethnic group , demography , logistic regression , multinomial logistic regression , feeling , association (psychology) , unintended pregnancy , medicine , bivariate analysis , gestation , public health , race (biology) , psychology , social psychology , gender studies , family planning , population , sociology , mathematics , anthropology , psychotherapist , computer science , research methodology , genetics , biology , machine learning , statistics , nursing
Objective: Black and Latinx individuals are often the focus of health educational efforts to ‘correct’ perceived flawed beliefs about pregnancy, in order to increase contracep­tive use and reduce unintended pregnan­cies. We sought to revisit the association between race, ethnicity, and beliefs about pregnancy.Methods: We administered a web-based survey to 2,099 heterosexual men and women aged 21-44 years, using non-proba­bility quota sampling. We analyzed a subset who were not currently pregnant (n=1,884) and conducted chi-square tests to examine the association between race/ethnicity and beliefs about avoiding pregnancy (can be avoided, determined by fate/God, ‘just happens,’ and is a natural process). We then performed a two-stage multinomial logistic regression, modeling the belief that pregnancy can be avoided. The first model included sociodemographic characteristics and the second model added feelings about pregnancy.Results: Bivariate analyses revealed that, compared with Whites, those who identi­fied as Black/African American or Latinx were significantly more likely to believe that pregnancy was determined by fate/God (15%,13% vs 9%, respectively) or a natural process (13%,13% vs 9%, respectively) and less likely to report that it can be avoided (57%,56% vs 67%, respectively; P=.001). In the first regression model, these differences persisted. However, in the second model, being Black/African American or Latinx was not significantly associated with beliefs about avoiding pregnancy.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that once more nuanced beliefs about pregnancy prevention are considered, Black and Latinx individuals do not hold strongly different beliefs than Whites. Efforts that exclusively focus on people of color to change beliefs about pregnancy appear unwarranted. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(4):525-532; doi:10.18865/ed.30.4.525

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