Two articles have been published in Epidemiology & Prevention on self-perceived knowledge about COVID-19 and the relationship between socioeconomic inequalities and reproductive outcomes within the NINFEA cohort.

The first study was conducted thanks to data collected through an anonymous questionnaire administered one-off to the cohort in April 2020, during the first lockdown following the pandemic emergency.

The objective of the cross-sectional study was to study the socio-demographic and disease-related factors that can influence self-perceived knowledge (medium / low vs high) on COVID-19 among women belonging to the NINFEA cohort. In particular, the level of self-perceived knowledge was analyzed in relation to the following variables: age, educational level, size of the household, cumulative incidence of Coronavirus 2 acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) cases by province as of 07.04.2020, presence of symptoms typical of COVID-19, exposure to testing for SARS-CoV-2, diagnosis of COVID-19.

3,129 women participated in the study. The prevalence of a low / medium self-perceived level of knowledge was 57%. The analyzes conducted showed an association between low level of education and medium / low level of self-perceived knowledge about COVID-19. An inverse association was also observed between medium / low self-perceived knowledge and exposure to tests for SARS-CoV-2 or diagnosis of COVID-19.

In conclusion, the study results suggest that low education is a determinant of low self-perceived knowledge about COVID-19 in middle-aged women.

The second study, of an observational type, aimed to analyze the relationship between socioeconomic position (PSE) and reproductive outcomes, using data from the entire NINFEA cohort, comparing the results with those obtained from the Piedmontese birth registry, taking into account the baseline collider. bias in both the cohort and the Registry.

The study found that in the NINFEA cohort, low PSE was positively associated with both preterm delivery (<37 weeks) and low birth weight (<2,550 g), with slightly stronger associations for family income, particularly with low birth weight.

The results appear consistent with those obtained from the Registry data, where an inverse relationship was observed between the maternal level of education and the two outcomes of interest. In both populations it was necessary to adjust for age and maternal parity, suggesting that, regardless of the type of study population (selected vs representative), factors affecting the probability of re-entering this population should be considered to obtain biased estimates.


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