Black-white differences in chronic stress exposures to predict preterm birth: interpretable, race/ethnicity-specific machine learning model

Differential exposure to chronic stressors by race/ethnicity may help explain Black-White inequalities in rates of preterm birth. However, researchers have not investigated the cumulative, interactive, and population-specific nature of chronic stressor exposures and their possible nonlinear associations with preterm birth. Models capable of computing such high-dimensional associations that could differ by race/ethnicity are needed. We developed machine learning models of chronic stressors to both predict preterm birth more accurately and identify chronic stressors and other risk factors driving preterm birth risk among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White pregnant women.

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) models were developed for preterm birth prediction for non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, and combined study samples derived from the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System data (2012–2017). For each sample population, MARS models were trained and tested using 5-fold cross-validation. For each population, the Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) was used to evaluate model performance, and variable importance for preterm birth prediction was computed.

Among 81,892 non-Hispanic Black and 277,963 non-Hispanic White live births (weighted sample), the best-performing MARS models showed high accuracy (AUC: 0.754–0.765) and similar-or-better performance for race/ethnicity-specific models compared to the combined model. The number of prenatal care visits, premature rupture of membrane, and medical conditions were more important than other variables in predicting preterm birth across the populations. Chronic stressors (e.g., low maternal education and intimate partner violence) and their correlates predicted preterm birth only for non-Hispanic Black women.

Our study findings reinforce that such mid or upstream determinants of health as chronic stressors should be targeted to reduce excess preterm birth risk among non-Hispanic Black women and ultimately narrow the persistent Black-White gap in preterm birth in the U.S.