# Community violence and disparities in maternal and infant health: effects and mechanisms

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2020 · $658,344

## Abstract

Project Summary
Improved understanding of community level determinants of perinatal health disparities is a research priority for
national health agencies. Community violence may contribute to adverse maternal and infant outcomes and may
be instrumental in explaining disparities in perinatal health by race/ethnicity and foreign-born status. However,
research has been substantially hampered by cross-sectional designs and methods that cannot disentangle the
effects of community violence from other highly correlated determinants of health. Thus, there is a critical need
for rigorous research to determine the effects of different aspects of community violence, both predictable overall
levels and unexpected acute changes, and to identify underlying psychological, behavioral and biological
mechanisms of effect that contribute to maternal and infant health and disparities. The overall objective of this
application is to test the central hypothesis that community violence increases the burden of and disparities in
maternal and infant health outcomes, and that potentially modifiable psychological (mental health, social
support), behavioral (substance use) and biological (maternal infections and conditions) mechanisms underlie
these effects. This hypothesis is supported by preliminary analyses that find trimester-specific violence is related
to preterm delivery, with the strongest effects among African Americans. The central hypothesis will be
addressed using data-adaptive quasi-experimental matching and fixed-effects methods and a rich covariate set
to accurately determine the effects of community violence on maternal and infant health. Analyses will be
conducted with over 6 million mothers and infants from statewide data on California (2005-2017) and survey-
based data on a representative sample of over 72,000 of these mothers and infants. The proposed research will
address the following specific aims: (1) Quantify the impacts of acute changes in community violence on maternal
and infant health disparities, and psychological, behavioral and biological mechanisms that explain the impacts;
(2) Determine the effects of the overall levels of community violence on maternal and infant health disparities,
and psychological, behavioral and biological mechanisms that underlie the effects. The work is innovative in (a)
distinguishing effects of overall levels of violence from acute changes in violence, (b) examining potentially
modifiable mechanisms, and (c) estimating population effects of potential interventions on violence and the
mediators. The research is expected to increase scientific understanding of the broader impacts of violence and
its role in shaping health disparities. In addition, this work is expected to identify the mechanisms that explain
the effects of violence on maternal and infant health, uncovering why racial/ethnic groups such as Latinas appear
to be protected, and potentially suggesting alternative points for intervention. Together, these ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9884094
- **Project number:** 1R01HD098138-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Jennifer Ahern
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $658,344
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-03-01 → 2024-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9884094

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9884094, Community violence and disparities in maternal and infant health: effects and mechanisms (1R01HD098138-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9884094. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*