Minority Health Month and Black Maternal Health

Apr 4

Black Maternal Health Week is coming up on April 11-17, 2022, and we want to take some time to focus on the state of Black maternal health in America. The statistics are staggering Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. And Black female doctors suffer the same statistics. According to Fierce Healthcare, four in five Black female doctors report discrimination in the workplace, much of it tied to maternal issues.

Why Black Maternal Health matters

Some may think that the issue of Black maternal health is not theirs. But Black maternal health is a public health issue. It impacts us all. When Black mothers die, their babies are more likely to die, too. Black maternal mortality rates have a domino effect on families, communities, and society as a whole.

Why Black Doctors.

Health equity ensures that every person has quality care delivered by culturally competent doctors. We can't meet this measure unless more black doctors can thrive in medicine. In April of 2019, the American Medical Association launched its Center for Health Equity. Along with its other strategic points, the AMA's fourth strategy is to push upstream to address all determinants of health & root causes of inequities, including:

Strengthen physicians’ knowledge of public health and structural/social drivers of health and inequities
Empower physicians and health systems to dismantle structural racism and intersecting systems of oppression
Equip physicians and health systems to improve services, technology, partnership, and payment models that advance public health and health equity (AMA)

These are important points, and Black Maternal Health Week is the perfect time to start focusing on them. But let's not overlook the obvious, medical schools aren't meeting the needs of black women. To do that, they would have to recruit more black doctors to the field of medicine, and hold their institutions accountable for inclusion in a measurable way.

-Shereese Maynard, MS, MBA

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