Heaman - population factors

So we already know there was some risk based on geographic region where we lived, but when we looked at individual characteristics of the women, those who are more likely to get inadequate care were young, especially teenagers but also women under 25 which was kind of surprising.  Women that were lone parents, women that were living in low income categories as either measured by: they lived in a region that had an income quintile based on census data in the lowest income quintile or they were living on income assistance, sometimes referred to as welfare. A couple of other factors related to inadequate prenatal care were having a high parity so having four or more previous births which probably contributes to the fact that you’re living with more children and sometimes it’s difficult for you to get out for your prenatal care or you may not value the importance of prenatal care at that stage. The other factor was having a short inter-pregnancy interval so in other words you have closely spaced pregnancies and you’re less likely to get prenatal care as well.