Expanding Medicaid to Reduce Human Immunodeficiency Virus Transmission in Houston, Texas: Insights From a Modeling Study.

Context: Medicaid expansion has been nationally shown to improve engagement in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) treatment and prevention continua, which are vital steps to stopping the HIV epidemic. New HIV infections in the United States are disproportionately concentrated among young Black men who have sex with men (YBMSM). Houston, TX, is the most populous city in the Southern United States with a racially/ethnically diverse population that is located in 1 of 11 US states that have not yet expanded Medicaid coverage as of 2021.

The association between maternal parity and birth defects.

Background: Previous studies observed that first birth is associated with an increased risk of some categories of birth defects. However, multiple statistical tests were conducted and it was unclear which of these associations would be replicated in a larger study. We used a large database to assess the association between maternal parity and 65 birth defects including birth defects that have not been previously studied.

Is maternal parity an independent risk factor for birth defects?

Background: Although associations between maternal parity and birth defects have been observed previously, few studies have focused on the possibility that parity is an independent risk factor for birth defects. We investigated the relation between levels of parity and a range of birth defects, adjusting each defect group for the same covariates.

Methods: We included infants who had an estimated delivery date between 1997 and 2007 and participated in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, a multisite case-control study.