Talk:Black maternal mortality in the United States

Untitled

Hello! I am the creator of this new article on Black Maternal Mortality in the United States! I would love any feedback or additions that anyone has to contribute to this important topic. Akandru (talk) 21:23, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Great work. You write well and have used good sources. I hope you will continue to write for Wikipedia! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:20, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Moving to Maryland or Virginia based on this data! Juju (talk) 01:40, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2021 and 21 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Textavour.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 June 2021 and 12 July 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ruthkayongo12, Sg1498, Dbq2.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Medical racism definition

What is the definition of "medical racism" that is used in this article? And do all the sources that are cited in this section use this term for the issues that are being described? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:34, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Clayoquot, I took another look at my sources and I think you raised a good point. While a lot of them talk about racism in the medical context, most of them don't name it specifically "medical racism". I am thinking of changing the title of the section to just "Racism" and making sure the content reflects the sources more accurately. Thanks! Akandru (talk) 21:30, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Akandru, That looks better, thanks. Regarding the first three paragraphs of the Racism section, would they fit better in the "Intersection of race and socioeconomic status" section, as hospital quality is a structural and socioeconomic issue? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

History and Initiatives to Compensate for Poor Black Maternal Health

Hello! We are three students at Georgetown University taking a Women and Gender Studies course called 'Medicine, Race, and Gender.' In this course, we are exploring issues and advocacy around health inequities. Part of this course requires that we make comments and suggestions on a talk page using some of the knowledge we have attained from our course. We all have an interest in Black Maternal Health which is why we are commenting on this article. We think that your page is very informative and provides great information on what black maternal health is a, but we think that there could be more information provided about the history of medicine and the racism that has stemmed from it, more specifically, how stereotypes and false narratives have originated and the lasting impacts that they have had on the field of healthcare today.

What we think should be added and why:

a) Update data under Maternal Mortality Rates. Most of the data that is included in this section is somewhat old considering that the WHO and other organizations produce data on these rates year. Therefore, we think that it would be good to include information and statistics that are more recent.

b) Include more information on the history of stereotypes of black women under the racism subsection. This section speaks briefly about the stereotypes, but the page and section could be stronger if there was more information on how these stereotypes originated and how they have impacted black maternal health today. For example, you could explain how black women were portrayed as "savage" which has contributed to the stereotype that black women do not feel pain.

c) Write about the Sister Song Reproductive Justice Initiative under the Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights subsection. This section explains the lack of access to reproductive care and having conducted a google search on Sister Song Reproductive Justice, we thought that it would be interesting to write about the initiative as it outlines a solution to the lack of access. Sg1498 (talk) 02:43, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Sources:

https://www.sistersong.net/reproductive-justice

https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/events/2008/mdg5/countries/Final-CP-USA-19-09-08.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality-2021/E-Stat-Maternal-Mortality-Rates-H.pdf

https://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/jezebel/

Sg1498 (talk) 02:40, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Revising Article

Hello, I am user Ferviani and for an assignment in one of my university courses, I have to choose an article to revise. For this article, I plan on updating the information and adding any information that has now been newly discovered using scholarly references. Also, I would better the organization of the article by rearranging or splitting the article into different sections. For more information on this revision, you can look towards the comments on my user page.Ferviani (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Revising Article

Hello! I'm revising a Wikipedia article for one of my university courses, and I would like to revise this page. I will be working with a classmate, and we will add more information from newer scholarly references and add to the lead section. We also plan on expanding the sections on historical context and racism. If you would like, you can view my user page for more information. LAM20 (talk) 22:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Revising Article

Hello! I will be revising the Wikipedia article on black materiality mortality in the United States. This article needs revision due to outdated content and poor organization. I will delete certain sections and rearrange and odd other content to others. Check my sandbox for more information on this. Ferviani (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Ferviani, LAM20, and everyone,

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for choosing to work on this topic area. It's great that both of you have posted the sources that you plan to use on your user pages. Quick question for Ferviani - you mentioned your sandbox. You have a sandbox page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ferviani/sandbox, but it doesn't specify your plans. If there's a particular page you'd like other editors to look at, please provide a link when it's ready.

I hope you enjoy your work at Wikipedia. Let me know if I can help. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:18, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Editing Wiki Article

Hello, You have written a very well-written and comprehensive article! I am in a class where we have been assigned to provide edits. My peers and I added a few examples of how black women's bodies were exploited. We believe this gives the reader objective specifics to the content you have written. We also included a couple of sentences to increase fluency within paragraphs. The citations are from peer reviewed sources and I hope you enjoy what I have added into the article you have written. The link to what we specifically added is provided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mmpqv5/Black_maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States?preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template

Best, Alicia.m3 (talk) 22:06, 09 October 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of History of Medical Racism, Intersectionality, & More Edits

Hello! We are 3 students at Georgetown University taking an English course titled “Disability Narratives.” Throughout the semester, we are examining if and how disability narratives are told and who gets to share their stories. These studies also involve considering intersectionality, different disability frameworks, and the concept of disability as a social identity. All three of us are interested in maternal mortality and the intersections of race and disability, specifically within the healthcare context. We really appreciate the information shared on this page, and we propose some additional changes to the page to further expand upon the problem of Black maternal mortality in the US.

First, we recommend an expansion on medical racism and how such institutional racism has created harmful stereotypes for Black women (i.e. higher pain tolerances) and general distrust of medicine in the United States. Furthermore, we suggest that the article includes a section on the effects of other identities, especially disability status, intersecting with gender and race throughout the pregnancy and birthing experiences. In addition, the graph on “Maternal Deaths by Cause” does not support the article’s overall focus on Black mothers. Thus, we recommend the inclusion of a graph focusing specifically on causes of death for Black mothers during pregnancy and/or birth. We also suggest that Black women’s diverse narratives on their lived experiences of childbirth be included in the article, such as through anthropological ethnographies. Finally, source 13 (Chandler, 2020) needs to be updated.

Preliminary sources:

Davis, Dána-Ain. 2019. Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth. New York: New York University Press.

Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R., & Oliver, M. N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(16), 4296–4301. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113

Kennedy BR, Mathis CC, Woods AK. African Americans and their distrust of the health care system: healthcare for diverse populations. J Cult Divers. 2007 Summer;14(2):56-60. PMID: 19175244.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/2021/jan/medical-mistrust-among-black-americans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Sterilization_of_African-American_women

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Maternal_Health_Caucus

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Disabled_Mothers_Stories_and_Scholarship/BdzhDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by CactusJack1555 (talk • contribs) 14:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Just a quick update! I've started to create small revisions on my sandbox. If anyone has anything they'd like to see in the article, let me know and I'll take it into consideration!Ferviani (talk) 19:26, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi everyone. It's really great to see how much quality work has gone into this article. There don't seem to be many non-student editors watching this page, so don't worry if things seem quiet - that's normal for Wikipedia. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:09, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A note on sourcing

I noticed the National Partnership website being cited as a source. When possible, please try to cite the scholarly literature rather than advocacy group websites. For instance, "over 22% of black women report discrimination from medical professionals when they are seeking help." should cite this document. Also, we don't usually name the funding source of studies, but it's often helpful to mention the year of the study. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:17, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Review of Article

I think that this article does a good job in helping readers understand what maternal mortality is and then why it is such a big issue for black women in the United States as well as the disparity between white and black women in the US. The background/historical information that adds greater context to the relationship dynamics between a lot of black women and the American healthcare system is crucial to this article and it's been developed well. However, I would say that the information on Henrietta Lacks and the Tuskegee experiment could possibly be condensed as I think one might lose sight of what the original subject of this article is when reading that section of the text. These two topics also have their own Wikipedia articles that could be linked to make up for any condensed information. This is an important aspect to consider as well as the use of hyperlinks throughout the article to make sure there's proper understanding of all terms/phrases used by the authors among readers. Ijwilliams (talk) 18:11, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Medicine, Race, and Gender

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2022 and 3 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tikomkheidze, Wp.tamiya.georgetown2022 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Lr775, Mbh90, Jmb517.

Revising Article

Hello! We are two students from Georgetown University, who are looking to revise this page for a class that we are in (collaborator will be pinged on this thread as well). While this is a great article, we believe that we can take it a step further and make overall revisions (such as grammar, punctuation, and general formatting).

Ideally, we would like to edit the introduction, and make it more informative for readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. Currently, as of March 16, 2022, we feel as though the introduction is repetitive and it strays from the topic at hand (Black Maternal Mortality in the United States).

Additionally, we would like to focus our revisions on the “Prevention” section, specifically creating a new subtitle for the section, since the term “Prevention” seems open-ended, and makes it as though there is a definite prevention for Black Maternal Mortality.

As we read through and revise the article, we would also like to WikiLink (when appropriate and applicable).

We will be sure to update this post with links to the sources that we were thinking about incorporating.

Fellow Collaborator: User:Wp.tamiya.georgetown2022

Tikomkheidze (talk) 00:43, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Geographical Case Study Edit to "Causes' Subheading: Early County, Georgia

Hello! I am a student at Georgetown University enrolled in a course entitled "Medicine, Race, and Gender". I am passionate about public health disparities within rural Southwestern Georgia, and am suggesting an edit to the "Causes" section of this very important wiki article. Early County, Georgia is an area near the Alabama state line that is historically known to be of low socioeconomic status. As a result of the low socioeconomic status of its residents, the vast majority of its population requires Medicaid insurance, or is uninsured.

Early County, Georgia is a "Maternal Care Desert" according to the March of Dimes. Maternal care deserts are a major threat to the overall state of public health in Georgia, and currently exacerbate the high maternal mortality rate. With Early County being a maternal care desert, this requires expecting mothers to commute long distances to healthcare centers that have reputable obstetrics care, such as in Albany, Georgia at Phoebe Memorial Hospital. This creates a major disparity between expecting mothers who can afford this commute and those who cannot, creating a major health risk for those who can't afford to make this over an hour in length trip.

Many of these mother's first trip to the ob/gyn are when they have their baby. This does both patient and provider a disservice, as the baby may be unhealthy, or the mother may have an underlying health condition that puts her of grave risk to multiple pregnancy related complications such as hemorrhaging.

As a future obstetrics and gynecological physician, I find it important to identify marginalized populations who are at risk for maternal mortality so that resources could be allocated to reduce that risk. I believe by adding an example case study to this article will assist physicians and public health researchers in identifying ways in which they are able to mitigate various social determinants of health that contribute to this maternal care desert, and the maternal mortality rate as a whole.

I believe that adding a specific case study that identifies disparities within this geographical area can allow readers of this article to view this issue on the individual mother level, and how it contributes to the state's maternal mortality rate, and ultimately the maternal mortality rate in the United States. Identifying rural problems, even in the most difficult public health environments such as this one could allow public health researchers to think of ways to mitigate and change this growing health related issue.

Source: MarchofDimes. “Maternity Care Desert: Georgia, 2018.” March of Dimes | PeriStats, [1]https://www.marchofdimes.org/peristats/data?reg=99&top=23&stop=641&lev=1&slev=4&obj=18&sreg=13. Caf149 (talk) 15:27, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Welcome! Overall I think this sounds like a fine idea. A few things to remember: firstly, always make sure your sources are cited and you have added references for the information you include. Secondly, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an academic paper, so remember to keep your tone consistent with that. Summarize and paraphrase where you can and do not go *too* far into detail. Good luck with the course and feel free to ask for help here or, if you'd like, on my talk page. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:21, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English 102

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Consistency of Style

Well written article. One minor style issue: Currently the capitalization is not very consistent. This mostly seems to concern color terminology, with the majority style choice being to capitalize. Rather than edit unilaterally, this is being posted here, in case there is a consensus by current editors to specifically capitalize one over others. There appears to be a not very clear exception for this in the relevant section of the current Manual of Style. It's a pretty minor issue, but whatever the consensus, consistency in this regard would better conform to the current style guidelines. Llamageddon (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: African American Studies

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Wiki Education assignment: Race in America, sec 2

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Tone

MUch of this article is written in the style of a magazine article rather than an encyclopedia, and a lot of the information is extremely tangential to the point at hand. HeLa, Sarah Baartman and Tuskegee are extremely tangential and are just cited because they are well-known. Sentences like "This was a result of the doctors not listening to her when she expressed her health concerns, and not considering those concerns serious enough to be acted upon urgently" with regard to Serena Williams is not at all borne out by articles like This from the Guardian where it actually says "It was only at her physiotherapist's insistence that she went to hospital". Most strangely, obesity only receives one brief mention when it is cited as a major factor in maternal mortality. (" In 2018, African American women were 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women." ... "There was a statistically significant increased rate ratio for perinatal mortality of 1.3 for mothers who are overweight and 1.8 for mothers with obesity") This i think is surely more significant than much of the material in this article which is vague and often based on subjective reports Sheila1988 (talk) 23:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)