Using Geographic Information Systems to Visualize Relationships Between Perinatal Outcomes and Neighborhood Characteristics When Planning Community Interventions.

OBJECTIVE: To describe maternal morbidity, birth outcomes, and neighborhood characteristics of urban women from a racially segregated city with the use of a geographic information system (GIS).

DESIGN: Exploratory neighborhood-level study. Existing birth certificate data were linked and aggregated to neighborhood-level data for spatial analyses.

SETTING: Southern city in New Jersey.

SAMPLE: Women and their 7,858 live births that occurred between 2009 and 2013.

METHODS: Secondary analyses of extant sources were conducted. Maternal health and newborn birth outcomes were geocoded and then aggregated to the neighborhood level for further exploratory spatial analyses through our GIS database. An iterative process was used to generate meaningful visual representations of the data through maps of maternal and infant health in 19 neighborhoods.

RESULTS: The racial and ethnic residential segregation and neighborhood patterns of associations of adverse birth outcomes with poverty and crime were illustrated in GIS maps. In 43% of the births, women had a documented medical risk. Significantly more preterm births occurred for Black women (p < .01) and women older than 35 years of age (p = .01). The rate of diabetes was greater in Hispanic women, and the rate of pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders was greater in Black women.

CONCLUSION: Data-driven maps can provide clear evidence of maternal and infant health and health needs based on the neighborhoods where mothers live. This research is important so that maternity care providers can understand contextual factors that affect mothers in their communities and guide the design of interventions.