How can disparities in maternal health outcomes be addressed?

Challenge

The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate in any developed nation in the world, with wide racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy-related deaths and adverse childbirth outcomes. This maternal health crisis calls for an immediate and collective response to identify and address complex, interacting structural inequities in maternal health outcomes.

Solutions

HRSA funding has been allocated to confront this challenge by creating a research network, the Maternal Health Equity Research Collaborative (MHERC), of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) to effectively address structural maternal health inequities through research initiatives that elevate the lived experiences across diverse perspectives.

In addition to the MHERC, The Morgan State University Maternal Health Equity Coordinating Center (MSU MHECC) was funded to support the MHERC, consisting of 18 MSIs, to build their capacity to address disparities in maternal health outcomes through community-based research and solutions that address health disparities and advance health equity. The MSU MHECC provides technical assistance and support to research centers as they build capacity within their institutions and conduct maternal health disparity research.

Westat’s convergent, parallel mixed methods will be used to obtain more complete conclusions that offer depth and context to the effectiveness of the MSU MHECC. Westat is using secondary data sources to measure progress toward the following MSU MHECC goals:

1. Develop and implement a framework to build the maternal health research capacity of the research centers.
2. Develop a learning community of the research centers and other partners.
3. Institute key data collection systems to support, evaluate, and sustain the ongoing work of research centers.
4. Sustain priority focus on climate change.

Primary data collection methods will include surveys and semi-structured interviews to supplement information collected from the secondary data sources and describe outcomes of the MSU-MHECC activities and their impact in supporting mentoring and capacity building across research centers.

Results

This work will help establish a multi-institutional network and coordinating center that is made up of and supports MSIs to positively impact the root causes of maternal health inequities and promote health equity through research, education, community engagement, and collaborative partnerships