The prevalence of infertility in American Indian/Alaska Natives and other racial/ethnic groups: National Survey of Family Growth.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of infertility in American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations is unknown. The objective of our study was to estimate the prevalence of infertility and impaired fecundity in the AI/AN population and other racial and ethnic groups.

METHODS: We analyzed female respondent data from the pooled National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) cycles 2002, 2006-2010, and 2011-2013. We used modified Poisson regression with robust error variance accounting for survey weighting to estimate prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for NSFG definitions of infertility and impaired fecundity by race and Hispanic ethnicity.

RESULTS: The prevalence of infertility and impaired fecundity in the pooled NSFG was 6.4% (95% CI: 5.7, 7.0) and 11.0% (95% CI: 11.0, 12.2), respectively. Compared to whites, blacks had a 1.45 times greater adjusted prevalence of infertility (95% CI: 1.15, 1.83) and AI/ANs had a 1.37 times greater prevalence of infertility (95% CI: 0.91, 2.06) compared to whites. We observed a 1.30 times greater prevalence of impaired fecundity among AI/AN (95% CI: 1.04, 1.62) compared to whites. We observed no differences in impaired fecundity for black or Asian/Pacific Islander women compared to whites or for Hispanic compared to non-Hispanic women.

CONCLUSIONS: Inequalities in the burden of reproductive impairments among blacks and AI/AN women warrant further evaluation to identify opportunities for prevention and disparity reduction.