Papers produced from the Health Inequalities Audit Process for DG Sante at European Commission: Diet, Nutrition and Obesity Task 4. Analysis of Low and High Birth Weight by Socioeconomic Status

Good perinatal health is essential for future health and sustainable development. As with many other public health issues, socio-economic status is a determinant of perinatal outcomes. The EU-funded project EUROPERISTAT,
monitors and evaluates perinatal maternal and child health and care in Europe. The indicators collected through the database are used to create a holistic picture that illustrates the characteristics, which can affect pregnancy outcome.
Relevant officials involved in the EURO-PERISTAT project were originally supposed to be contacted and investigations carried out to explore the nature, availability, and the ownership of the data. However EU officials were not contacted and more indepth investigations were limited by the lack of time allocated for this activity. Eleven experts were identified and seven were contacted within the time frame in order to extract as much information as possible related to EURO-PERISTAT. Although perinatal indicators, such as the distribution of birth weight and gestational age are collected at a national level, few countries collect indicators related to socio-economic determinants. However, the authors were unable to find any analyses of the distribution of birth weight by gestational age or by socio-economic status variables by EU Member States. It is unclear whether routine data from civil registers, surveillance etc. are collected in this manner. However data via EURO-PERISTAT may indeed be available since to our knowledge at least two EU Member States, Italy and Slovenia, have carried out research using national EURO-PERISTAT data
on how to combine birth weight, intrauterine growth restriction, and socieconimc status.