신생아에 대한 주중, 주말간 병원서비스의 격차

Abstract

This study analyzed whether the higher mortality of weekendborn children compared to weekday-born are due to lowered staffing ratio over the weekend or unobserved health condition of newborns. Unlike the previous studies we use the census of US births and truly exogenous birth timing by focusing on vaginal deliveries without induction or stimulation. The statistically significantly higher mortality rate for weekend-born babies was no longer observed when birth weight was included as a proxy for unobserved health condition and these results are robust across various samples and different locations. Our findings are robust to high risk groups such as cesarean section and low birth weight samples.