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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.


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  • 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
  • Person-centered contraceptive access benefits reproductive autonomy, sexual wellbeing, menstrual regulation, and other preventive health. However, contraceptive access varies by social and geographic position, with policies either perpetuating or alleviating health inequities. We describe geographic and time-trend variation in an index from fewer (less expansive) to greater (more expansive)…
    June 2022
    Contraceptive Use/Access, Policy and Practice
  • Community-based participatory strategies are a promising approach to addressing disparities in community health outcomes. This paper details the efforts of Siteman Cancer Center to achieve breast health equity over the past 15+ years. We begin by describing the activities and successes arising from our breast health community partnerships including identifying priorities, developing…
    May 2022
    Cancer
  • 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
  • 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
  • Few studies have illustrated how racism influences Black women’s use of reproductive health care services. This article presents findings of a collaborative study conducted by a research team and a reproductive justice organization to understand Black women’s concerns with sexual and reproductive health services. The qualitative research was conducted with Black women living in Georgia and North…
    February 2022
    Reproductive/Sexual Health, Policy and Practice, Racism
  • 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
  • Women’s Health Research at Yale is changing science to address the health needs of women and improve outcomes for everyone. Recent work funded by The Community Foundation is developing heart disease treatment that accurately responds to the biology and experiences of women. (author abstract) 
    December 2021
    Heart disease
  • 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
  • This article introduces the Hewlett Foundation’s refreshed Global Reproductive Equity (GRE) strategy, focusing on improving sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in East and Francophone West Africa. The strategy, developed with input from grantee partners, funders, and stakeholders, addresses the impact of COVID-19 on health systems and emphasizes the need for equity and power shifting…
    September 2021
    Social/Structural Determinants
  • 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
  • Intersectionality is a widely adopted theoretical orientation in the field of women and gender studies. Intersectionality comes from the work of black feminist scholars and activists. Intersectionality argues identities such as gender, race, sexuality, and other markers of difference intersect and reflect large social structures of oppression and privilege, such as sexism, racism, and…
    August 2021
    Policy and Practice, Isms and Phobias
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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

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