796 - Social Distancing and Perinatal, Neonatal, and Infant Mortality during the COVID-19 Pandemic Period in the United States of America

Saturday, April 29, 2023

3:30 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Poster Number: 796
Publication Number: 796.249

Vivek Shukla, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States; Lucinda Weaver, University of Alabama at Birm, BIRMINGHAM, AL, United States; Avinash Singh, Childrens Hospital of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, United States; Waldemar A. Carlo, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, United States

Presenting Author(s)

Vivek Shukla, MD (he/him/his)

Assistant Professor
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama, United States

Background: Variability associated with the pandemic related to the implementation, public adherence to lockdowns, and mobility restrictions provided an opportunity to objectively examine the changes in perinatal, neonatal, and infant mortality with pandemic-related social distancing metrics.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that increased social distancing was associated with higher perinatal and neonatal mortality and lower infant mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/Methods:

This population-based cohort study was conducted using participant-level data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maternal-linked birth and infant death records from 2016 to 2020. The reference period was defined as March-December of 2016-2019, and the pandemic period was defined as March-December of 2020. All deliveries of infants born at 20 weeks gestational or greater were included. Perinatal, neonatal, and infant mortality were defined as deaths within 7, 28, and 365 days after birth, respectively. The mortality rates were correlated with the state-specific social distancing index (SDI, computed from six mobility metrics, from https://data.covid.umd.edu, available for the pandemic period).

Results:

The analysis included 11,393,812 births, of which 8,362,907 were from the reference and 3,030,905 were from the pandemic period. The social distancing index was not significantly correlated with mortality rates (perinatal mortality: correlation coefficient, CC = 0.19, 95 % CI= -2.43, 2.82; neonatal mortality: CC= 0.04, 95 % CI=-2.12, 2.20; and infant mortality: CC = -0.14, 95 % CI=-1.52, 1.27). Mortality rates during the pandemic period continued the trends for lower mortalities over the years in the reference period, contributing to the negative percentage change seen in Figure 1.

Conclusion(s):

The social distancing index during the COVID-19 pandemic period was not significantly correlated with changes in perinatal, neonatal, or infant mortality in the United States of America.