• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.147-155
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• 2014

The objective of the study was to analyze the regional variance of late preterm birth (LPT: 34-36 weeks) by analyzing 2008-2012 birth certificated data of seven metropolitan cities (536,984 births: primiparous singleton birth) from Korea Statistics. The odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals were calculated from multinominal logistic regression analyses to describe the regional variance of LPT adjusted for maternal and infantile variables. The highest incidence of LPT rate by region were observed in Ulsan metropolitan city (3.7 percent), and the lowest in Deajon metropolitan city (3.1 percent). After adjustment by logistic regression for infantile sex, maternal variables, there was a significant increase in the risk of late preterm birth in Ulsan metropolitan city (odds ratio: 1.21) as compared with the incidence of LPT in Deajon metropolitan city. The odds ratio of LPT by region were 1.17 in Daegu metropolitan city, 1.13 Busan metropolitan city, and 1.12 in Incheon metropolitan city. More research is required to understand the risk factors for late preterm birth in this area including socio-demographic factors, medical factors, and regional and environmental factors.