Inequalities in Communicating about Nutrition Information during Prenatal Care: The After-Visit Summary

ABSTRACT

Background

Though prenatal nutrition information is critical, it is not known whether information is shared equitably by patient race, financial security, or English proficiency.

Purpose

To evaluate whether delivery or receipt of ChooseYourFish.org nutrition information in the first prenatal visit differed by patient demographics.

Methods

Analysis of clinician-document electronic health record (EHR) or patient-reported surveys compared delivery and receipt of fish-related nutrition information in the first prenatal visit. Inferential statistics were used to compare delivery or receipt and race, ethnicity, payor, or interpreter use.

Results

EHR analysis (n = 2,329) revealed Medicaid patients who used an interpreter were half as likely to have the fish nutrition message in their after-visit summary compared to those with Medicaid who did not use an interpreter (OR = 0.54, 95% CL: 0.35–0.84). The same was not true for non-Medicaid patients. Survey analysis (n = 52) showed respondents identifying as Black or African American were 25% less likely to report receiving the after-visit summary compared to respondents who identified as white (p < .01).

Discussion

The results presented here illustrate how nutrition communication in the prenatal period can differ by patient race, financial security, and language.

Translation to Health Education Practice: Culturally humble efforts to understand drivers of healthcare communication are needed to eliminate inequalities.

A AJHE Self-Study quiz is online for this article via the SHAPE America Online Institute (SAOI) http://portal.shapeamerica.org/trn-Webinars

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative through the Minnesota Department of Health [grant number GL00E01161].