Health Disparities and Black Birthing People

Four women having a business meeting over coffeeChildbearing is riskier in the United States than in any other high-wealth country in the world. This is particularly true for Black Americans, who die of pregnancy-associated causes at three to four times the rate of White Americans. These untimely deaths related to child-–deaths that occur short of statistically expected life spans-–are referred to as “maternal mortality.”

We say, “taken too soon,” as we murmur our condolences at the gravesite. This is indeed true, because most instances of Black maternal mortality are preventable. Also preventable, and widely unrecognized, are the years of devastating impacts on surviving children, spouses, partners, parents, and siblings. For them, a maternal death starts a long clock of emotional, physiological, social, and economic consequences that may emerge over months, years, and generations among the bereaved.

The Health Disparities and Black Birthing People project at the Health Humanities Lab, in close collaboration with the Office of Health Equity, seeks to explore issues of Black maternal health, maternal morbidity, and bereavement. As part of this project, faculty and community fellows have created the following publicly accessible educational module: Unequal Burdens: Black Maternal Mortality and Bereavement.

Community/Faculty Fellows

Kenda Sutton-El

Kenda Sutton-El
Founder/Executive Director, Birth-in-Color RVA

Sequoi Hawkins

Sequoi Hawkins
Community-based Doula

Nancy Jallo

Nancy Jallo, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Health Nursing

Susan Bodnar-Deren

 Susan Bodnar-Deren, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, Sociology

Terry Erwin

Terri Erwin
Organizer for New Leadership Development, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy

Ayesha Taylor

Ayesha Taylor
Director of Communications, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy

Mary Boyes

Mary Boyes
Associate Professor, VCU Honors

Faye Prichard

Faye Prichard
Former Chair, Virginia State Board of Health, and Director of Writing, VCU Honors College