“The process of creating patient-centered care takes a lot of time. We’re reaching…communities of color who have not usually had a state at the table.”
– Ijeoma Uche, MPH
“Many places are still not capturing racial, ethnic, and gender data. Pregnancy data can sometimes be missing or incomplete, especially when we’re thinking about the worst outcomes like maternal mortality. We need that to be complete data.”
– Dr. Mary Fleming
Description
In the United States, Black maternal health is in steep decline. Despite increased awareness and better data about the depths of racial health disparities, outcomes for Black birthing people remain poor. At the same time, a revolution in healthcare technologies is underway, and as they provide care at the frontlines of a crisis, birth workers are figuring out how to make digital health technologies work for them and their patients.
In her report Establishing Vigilant Care: Data Infrastructures and the Black Birthing Experience, Joan Mukogosi explores how digital health technologies can produce new forms of harm for Black birthing people — by exposing Black patients to carceral systems, creating information silos that impede interoperability, and failing to meet privacy standards. By paying close attention to how clinical contexts and their associated digital technologies impact how care is delivered, this research offers a glimpse into possibilities for improved cohesion between digital health technologies and birth work.
In this Databite discussion, Mukogosi spoke with Dr. Mary Fleming and Ijeoma Uche about the facts and future of data-driven maternal care for Black patients. Reckoning with the decline of Black maternal health amid advancements in clinical technologies, they discussed the implications of an increasingly data-driven response to the Black maternal health crisis.
Speakers
Mary Fleming
Dr. Mary E. Fleming works clinically in Baltimore, MD and Louisville, KY, and is co-founder and chief medical officer for Cayaba Care, a maternal health start-up, in Philadelphia, PA. Since 2021, she has served as director of the Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care program in the department of executive and continuing professional education at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. As president of the nonprofit Reede Scholars, Dr. Fleming develops strategies for the scholars to address health equity and social justice. She frequently consults as a medical expert reviewer and physician editor.
Dr. Fleming practiced as a generalist in a Norristown, PA community hospital for four years before deciding to transition to be a full-time locum tenens physician. In this capacity, she has worked in several states across the country, and volunteered with Our Lady of Lourdes Mission Hospital in Mutomo, Kenya. A native of Louisville, KY, she completed her undergraduate degree at Xavier University of Louisiana, her medical degree at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Meharry Medical College. Due to her interests in eradicating health inequities and improving healthcare for the underserved, she matriculated to Harvard Medical School as a Commonwealth Fellow in minority health policy, where she obtained a masters degree in public health.
Ijeoma Uche | LinkedIn
Ijeoma Uche, MPH, is the cofounder of Birth By Us, a postpartum and pregnancy app created to empower women of color to shape their own birthing experience while giving providers and hospital systems the insights to best support their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey and reduce preventable maternal deaths and complications. With a masters degree in public health, specializing in maternal, child, and adolescent health from UC Berkeley, Ijeoma’s journey in healthcare has been marked by a passion for addressing maternal health disparities. Her earlier research at Brown University focused on these disparities, and she is excited about the transformative potential of digital healthcare and technology in advancing reproductive health and health equity as a student physician.
Acknowledged for her dedication to social impact, Ijeoma has been honored as an NMQF 40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health and an MIT SOLV[ED] Under 24 Innovator, and is a recipient of the Westly Prize and a UC Berkeley BIG IDEAS award. She is also a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley. With a robust background in statistical computing, data visualization, biostatistics, and health informatics, she advocates for inclusive health tech solutions that empower communities.
Host
Resources
Reference
- SUNRISE Study at Kaiser Permanente led by Dr. Susan Brown, UC Davis
Resources
- Beda Jean-Francois et al., “The Potential for Health Information Technology Tools to Reduce Racial Disparities in Maternal Morbidity and Mortality,” Journal of Women’s Health 30, no. 2 (2021).
- Jennifer C. Nash, Birthing Black Mothers, Duke University Press (2021).
- Jennifer C. Nash, “Black maternal mortality rates are a national embarrassment. Doulas can help,” San Francisco Chronicle (2021).
- Jennifer C. Nash, “Love Warriors: Women of Color Doulas in a Time of Crisis,” Literary Hub (2021).
- Khiara Bridges, Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization, University of California Press (2011).
- Dána-Ain Davis, “Obstetric Racism: The Racial Politics of Pregnancy, Labor, and Birthing,” Medical Anthropology 38, no. 7 (2019).
- Madison Harris, “The New Dangers Surrounding Period-Tracking Apps – In Our Own Voice,” Black Reproductive Justice (2022).