By law in Florida, all mothers known to have used alcohol or illicit drugs during pregnancy must be reported to health authorities, however, black women were reported at a rate 10 times higher than white women. Chasnoff et al. conjecture that, among other reasons, physicians may be more reluctant to report drug use by white private patients than to report black public clinic patients. Also, differences in physicians' perceptions of the severity of cocaine versus marijuana use may explain reporting differences. Comparisons of drug use by race may be misleading. Poverty and neonatal health .
Poverty is significantly related to poor neonatal health.
In a longitudinal study of newborns in an eight county area of California, Braveman et al.