THE PREVALENCE OF BIRTH DEFECTS AMONG NON-HISPANIC ASIANS AND AMERICAN INDIANS/ALASKA NATIVES IN TEXAS, 1999-2015

Background: Birth defects are disproportionately higher among certain race/ethnic groups. We examined how birth defects prevalence differs among the less studied non-Hispanic (NH) Asian and any American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations, relative to NH Whites. Methods: Data were obtained from the Texas Birth Defect Registry from 1999 to 2015 for infants born to Texas-resident mothers who were NH White, NH Asian, or AI/AN. This covers a livebirth population of 2.6 million. Prevalence ratios were calculated for NH Asians and AI/ANs (relative to NH Whites) for 44 birth defects using Poisson regression and were adjusted for maternal age. Results: After adjustment, there were 34 statistically significant prevalence ratios. Among NH Asians, 23 defects had a lower adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) and 3 defects had a higher aPR. AI/ANs had 2 defects with a significantly lower aPR and 6 with a higher aPR. Conclusions: NH Asians generally have a lower prevalence for birth defects while AI/ANs have a higher prevalence compared to NH Whites. These findings update the limited previous literature on this topic and also warrant additional research among larger populations in order to identify the true association of these understudied race/ethnic groups

Does Agglomeration Account for Process Innovation in Vietnamese Small and Medium Enterprises?

Although small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in the Vietnamese economy, this sector’s growth is hindered by low level of technology and innovation. This paper uses firm-level panel data to examine whether process innovation activities in SMEs are influenced by their industrial environments. It measures the effects that agglomeration, the geographic concentration of firms within the same locality, has on firms’ total outputs and their propensity to introduce new technology. Using a logistic model with firm fixed-effects, I find that agglomeration decreases outputs of informal firms and the likelihood of new technology introduction in all firms. However, there are evidence of positive lagged effects of agglomeration on innovation and heterogeneous effects across industries