Folic acid use declining among Latinas

Use of vitamins with folic acid — a dietary supplement that can prevent neural tube birth defects — declined among Latinas in California from 2002 to 2006, despite a decade-long public health effort that has raised consumption among black, white and Asian women of childbearing age, according to a study released Thursday.

The downward trend among Latinas, to whom more than half of the babies in the state are born, has led public health officials to worry that the state’s birth-defect rate could rise.

California Latinas already have a rate of neural tube birth defects nearly double that of whites, previous studies have found.”*

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