Maternal and child health disparities: considering the influence of fathers.

Abstract

Disparities in many maternal and child health outcomes persist in the United States. Mothers and children who live in poverty are at higher risk for a variety of mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral health problems, including depression, obesity, child maltreatment, teenage problem behaviors, drug abuse, and lower educational attainment.1 Moreover, the 2010 US Census revealed that 20% of children in the United States are living in poverty with an overrepresentation of African American and Hispanic children.2 Boys born to African American or Hispanic mothers may be disproportionately at risk for experiencing negative health outcomes depending on their socioeconomic status in combination with other individual, family, community and environmental factors.3 While the focus on mothers and children is essential and important for public health, the role of fathers has been often overlooked. Fathers can offer additional health and economic resources, including access to quality health care. Through tangible and emotional support for mothers, fathers can provide a healthy start for their sons prenatally and over the life course. When paternal resources are absent or insufficient, the health and development of mothers and sons may suffer. To adequately assess health disparities in boys and men, data on father characteristics and resources is a critical component.4 Father and son playing. Printed with permission of Corbis. The National Children’s Study (NCS),5 mandated by the Children’s Health Act of 2000, is the largest and most detailed study in the United States focused on children’s health and development. It will examine the relationships between environmental exposures and genetics on growth, development and health, including health disparities among children in the United States from prenatal to adulthood. The NCS Vanguard Study serves as a paradigm for the future NCS Main Study with the inclusion of fathers in data collection and measures that assess father involvement and its impact on maternal and child health disparities. The inclusion of fatherhood data in large, national surveys allows for sufficient statistical power to examine meaningful factors related to paternal support for mothers and sons among diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status groups. Although research suggests that the engagement, accessibility and involvement of fathers with their sons may influence child socioemotional, cognitive, and health outcomes, fatherhood data has lagged behind that on the role of mothers. Recruitment and retention of fathers from diverse families along with mothers and sons present a difficult but worthwhile challenge to public health researchers. Novel data and analyses on fathers and sons have exciting potential to inform the future of maternal, paternal, child, and family health disparities.