Aims:

This project aims to quantify gender inequalities in pre-natal and neonatal health outcomes and examine whether the maternal environment modifies the risks. Hypothesis:The maternal environment and offspring gender modify each other's influence on key early life health outcomes. Our first objective is to quantify the degree of excess risk to males across several linked outcomes in early life. By undertaking a cohesive overview of existing databases, the work will identify whether gender imbalances are increasing or static, and whether patterns are consistent across countries. Our second objective is to review systematically the extent to which published studies and datas on the primary outcomes take account of gender as a potential modifier of the effect of treatments and risk factors, and to review their statistical power to detect interactions if they exist. Our final objective is to test the hypothesis that maternal environment (smoking, race, social class, maternal age, and economic deprivation) interacts with gender in determining the degree of risk of the outcomes.