1.

Citation (ASA Style):

Finch, Brian Karl, Nelson Lim, William Perez, and D. Phuong Do. 2007. "Toward a
Population Health Model of Segmented Assimilation: The Case of Low Birth
Weights in Los Angeles." Sociological Perspectives 50:445-468
.

The primary research question of the Finch article has to deal with low birth weights. They
use information from Los Angeles to make their case. In a few words, they were looking to
analyze the occurrences of low birth weights in immigrant families and how their status as
well as their surrounding effected it.

After calculating the amount of births that could be traced back to the Los Angeles area and
extracting only the types of parents eligible it came to 140,472 infants in the study. The
infants were mostly immigrants but some were national in order to control their findings.

The researchers started with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and received
the vital birth records for the area. After whittling down the numbers to a manageable and
streamlined sample they used statistical analysis for the information. They used 2500 grams as the
appropriate weight for newborns so any baby below was considered low. It broke down further
into location, country of origin, social network, country of primary education, etc. It is broken
down yet again to socioeconomic status. As you will later read, these methods of highly integrated
statistics worked perfectly for the experiment. The lack of personal contact with the samples is
ideal for such a touchy subject as one’s children. The limitations I feel present themselves in the
tail of the project due to its lack of scope and potential bias.
5.What were the primary findings of the
research?
After what had to be an exhaustiveAnnotated
research project there were some very interesting findings. I
Bibliography
say that as a reader with my own intuitions
Worksheet about what I expected and then what I actually read.
First, the results dictate that immigrants that migrate here to have children have relatively healthy
Review
babies the
withdirections and How
little or no chance to Prepare
of defect an than
(no more Annotated
anyone elses) Second generations having
Bibliography
children typically have more babies with low birth weights which coincides with infant mortality,
hyperactivity, and learning disabilities. Secondly, migrants that are classified as professionals,
those with more schooling then others are at a higher risk for their children to have low birth
weights then do those of the labor community. Thirdly, mothers that have the proper support
system in place typically are at a lower risk by low birth weights in their children.

Some contributing factors to the problem as stated in the article is America’s bad habits and how
2.What is the primary
they contribute research
to low birth weight.question or thesis
This explains of comers
the new this to the country with the healthy
article?
babies. Even if they come from shambles to more shambles here in the states typically their
babies are still healthy. For the professional migrants who are educated and might spend some or
most of their time assimilated with the nationals have been known to adopt some habits such as
smoking, drinking or drug use. These actions or habits are nowhere near as prevalent in other
countries especially Latin ones.     

3.What are the characteristics of the population studied? How many people, ages,
genders, race/ethnicity/nationality, professions, etc.? How were these people
selected?
6.Critique this article, discuss method, findings, analysis, writing style, or other
elements of the research project.

Besides the obvious problem I had with it in that it was way over my head
due to the statistical jibber-jabber. I am sure an accomplished sociologist
with a background in statistical analysis could have deciphered it
perfectly and taken every aspect of it to the bank. I had to pick through it
and figure out what I could contextually. But from what I understood it
was extremely well written and very informative. The only critique I could
think of it perhaps the scope may be kind of narrow. I would be curious to
see ifresearch
4.What some ofmethod(s)
these findings held upby
was employed everywhere in theWas
the researchers? US the
this way they for the
appropriate
did in Los Angeles.
population and the research question? Were there limitations to this method?