Search

Resource Library

The Partners for Advancing Health Equity (P4HE) Resource Library is a virtual portal containing action-oriented health equity research, practice, and policies. The library aims to increase equity in health by offering free access to field-tested, evidence-informed and evidence-based programs strategies and high-quality research.


Read More about the Library Scope.
Learn More about how to Search the Library.

  • From 2014 to 2015, W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) partnered with the University of New Mexico evaluation team to conduct a study to examine if and how the Foundation's investments in the strategies of folic acid initiative, home visiting, doulas, breastfeeding peer counselors and baby-friendly hospitals were improving maternal-child health in WKKF's priority places in New Mexico. One key finding…
    June 2022
    Maternal/Child Health
  • The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a widely used program. Previous research shows that WIC improves birth outcomes, but evidence about impacts on children and families is limited. We use a regression discontinuity leveraging an age five when children become ineligible for WIC and examine nutritional and laboratory outcomes for adults and children…
    June 2022
    Maternal/Child Health
  • This Webinar included a discussion of pregnancy-related mortality through the lens of abortion access and other policy decisions like Medicaid expansion. This included discussions of community- and culturally- centered birthing work and the need for cross-sector collaboration in this space.#P4HEwebinarMay2022 
    May 2022
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality, Policy and Practice
  • As the AAMC Center for Health Justice prepares to host the inaugural Maternal Health Incubator later this month to address the longstanding trends of racial and ethnic health inequities for women and birthing people, hearing directly from those who have given birth is of high importance. In March and April 2022, the AAMC Center for Health Justice polled a nationally representative sample of…
    May 2022
    Maternal/Child Health
  • This episode of On the Evidence features guests Kara Zivin, Laurie Zephyrin, and Adriana Kohler, who discuss untreated maternal mental health conditions, why it’s important to estimate the economic costs of not treating these conditions, and what further evidence will help us fully understand the negative impacts of untreated maternal mental health conditions and the potential positive effects of…
    May 2022
    Maternal/Child Health, Mental/Behavioral Health
  • We study the effect of punitive and priority treatment policies relating to illicit substance use during pregnancy on the rate of neonatal drug withdrawal syndrome, low birth weight, low gestational age, and prenatal care use. Punitive policies criminalize prenatal substance use, or define prenatal substance exposure as child maltreatment in child welfare statutes or as grounds for termination of…
    April 2022
    Maternal/Child Health, Substance Use and Misuse
  • Adequate access to resources such as child care, nutritious foods, and housing can help people of reproductive age and their families lead healthy lives. However, these resources are not sufficiently available across all geographic areas and communities in the United States. People in these underserved communities—who have historically been disproportionately affected by rigid policies, minimal…
    January 2022
    Maternal/Child Health, Social/Structural Determinants
  • In this research note, I estimate one component of the mortality impact of denying all wanted induced abortions in the United States. This estimate quantifies the magnitude of an increase in pregnancy-related deaths that would occur solely because of the greater mortality risk of continuing a pregnancy rather than having a legal induced abortion. Using published statistics on pregnancy-related…
    December 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality, Abortion Access
  • Importance  Severe maternal morbidity (SMM) is a major risk factor for maternal mortality, yet little is known about geographic variation in SMM or factors associated with geographical variation at the local level. Municipal governments incur substantial expenditures providing services that are an essential part of residents’ lives, but associations between municipal expenditures and…
    November 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
  • Maternal safety refers to the safety of a person during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period. Transitions through pregnancy and birth can pose complex safety challenges, and normal physiologic changes can result in signs and symptoms that make it difficult to recognize and diagnose serious illness. Additionally, patients may not receive timely or adequate information about their health…
    October 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
  • Structural racism causes significant inequities in the diagnosis of perinatal and maternal mental health disorders and access to perinatal and maternal mental health treatment. Black birthing populations are particularly burdened by disjointed systems of care for mental health. To identify strategies to address racism and inequities in maternal and infant mental health care, we interviewed ten…
    October 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Isms and Phobias
  • The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries and experiences substantial disparities in maternal health outcomes, particularly by race and ethnicity. The most recent national report on maternal mortality in the US reveals a significant increase in the national maternal mortality rate in 2019 compared to 2018 (20.1 and 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births…
    August 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Policy and Practice
  • As Congress considers proposals to be included in the upcoming budget reconciliation package, a number of health care measures are on the table. Among these potential reforms are pathways to close the gap in Medicaid coverage that exists in the twelve states that declined to expand Medicaid after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A Supreme Court ruling in 2012 made Medicaid expansion…
    August 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Reproductive/Sexual Health, Medicaid
  • Background: Medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) improve outcomes for pregnant women and infants. Our primary aim was to examine disparities in maternal MOUD receipt by family sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included mother-infant dyads with Medicaid-covered deliveries in Tennessee from 2009 to 2016. First, we examined family sociodemographic…
    July 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Substance Use and Misuse, Medicaid
  • The strong relationship between housing and health has been well-established, a reality that can be critically important for those who are pregnant. Affordable, quality housing—and where it is located—directly affect families’ physical and emotional well-being. Since October 2019, cross-sector “core teams” in nine states and Washington, D.C., have been working to address drivers of maternal and…
    June 2021
    COVID-19/Coronavirus, Maternal/Child Health, Social/Structural Determinants
  • Substantial research documents health consequences of neighborhood disadvantage. Patterns of residential mobility that differ by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) may sort non-Hispanic (NH) Black and low-SES families into disadvantaged neighborhoods. In this study, we leverage a sibling-linked dataset to track residential mobility among birthing persons between pregnancies and…
    May 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Healthy Housing
  • The reproductive justice framework holds much promise for guiding research that can contribute to social change. Its limited integration and use in social psychology therefore represents a missed opportunity for justice-oriented social researchers. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the reproductive justice framework and demonstrate its value for social psychologists…
    May 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality, Abortion Access
  • Objective: To synthesize the literature on associations between social determinants of health and pregnancy-related mortality and morbidity in the US and to highlight opportunities for intervention and future research.Data Sources: We performed a systematic search using Medline Ovid, CINAHL, Popline, Scopus and ClinicalTrials.gov (1990–2018) using MeSH terms related to maternal…
    April 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality, Social/Structural Determinants
  • Medicaid has a long history of serving pregnant women, but many women are not eligible for Medicaid before pregnancy or after sixty days postpartum. We used data for new mothers with Medicaid-covered prenatal care in 2015–18 from forty-three states participating in the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) to describe patterns of perinatal uninsurance and health outcomes of women…
    April 2021
    Illness/Disease/Injury/Wellbeing, Maternal/Child Health, Depression, Medicaid
  • Issue: In the United States, high spending on maternity care does not translate to better maternal health outcomes. People of color, particularly Black and Indigenous women, are at heightened risk for negative outcomes.Goal: To examine models for delivering maternity care that could improve outcomes and reduce racial inequities in maternal morbidity and mortality.Methods: Review of research…
    March 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Policy and Practice
  • Since the World Health Organization launched its commission on the social determinants of health (SDOH) over a decade ago, a large body of research has proven that social determinants—defined as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age—are significant drivers of disease risk and susceptibility within clinical care and public health systems. Unfortunately, the term has…
    February 2021
    Maternal/Child Health, Social/Structural Determinants
  • In the United States, despite significant investment and the efforts of multiple maternal health stakeholders, maternal mortality (MM) has reemerged since 1987 and MM disparity has persisted since 1935. This article provides a review of the U.S. MM trajectory throughout its history up to its current state. From this longitudinal perspective, MM trends and themes are evaluated within a global…
    February 2021
    Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
  • In partnership with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) recently held a virtual roundtable discussion of state officials to discuss maternal health initiatives in Illinois and Georgia and explore strategies to improve maternal health outcomes for Medicaid enrollees. Despite spending more than other developed nations on hospital-provided…
    November 2020
    Adverse Birth Outcomes, Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
  • A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study published in September found that pregnant women, especially Black and Latinx, are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant individuals. They are more likely to be admitted to intensive care units (ICU), receive invasive ventilation, and are at increased risk of death.In response to COVID-19, several states…
    November 2020
    COVID-19/Coronavirus, Maternal Morbidity and Mortality
  • The inequities laid bare by COVID-19 underscore the importance of states’ efforts to develop policies and interventions to address all health disparities. Systemic racism, a driver of these inequities, also fuels disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality – Black women are four-times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women. States are on the frontlines, working…
    October 2020
    Adverse Birth Outcomes, Maternal Morbidity and Mortality

Submit a Resource

Do you have something you think is appropriate for the library?

Submit Information
Laptop