El Paso study finds preeclampsia in nearly one in four Latinas

The Story in Brief

A study of 176 Latinas receiving publicly funded prenatal care in El Paso, Texas, found a nearly 25% preeclampsia rate during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hindu reports that the national US rate was about 8% in 2021. Preeclampsia causes dangerously high blood pressure and can lead to organ damage, seizures, stroke and death without prompt treatment.

The researchers link the disparity to poverty, food insecurity, racism, discrimination, severe stress, environmental toxins, extreme heat and COVID-19 infection during pregnancy. They caution that the participants, who qualified for public benefits, do not represent El Paso’s entire population. More than 80% of the city’s nearly 700,000 residents identify as Latino, while 35% of households reported food insecurity in 2023.

The Indian Opinion

The lazy narrative would treat ethnicity as the cause, while another would blame every case on pandemic care. The study points instead to conditions that shape health before an emergency reaches a hospital, including poverty, stress and access to prenatal support. Its sample is small and limited to low-income patients, so it cannot explain the whole disparity. The useful test is whether larger studies find the same gap after accounting for income, care and environmental exposure.

Source: thehindu.com

This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.

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