Lifting up the voices of Black moms when covering maternal health

By Candice Wilder, Equity in Health Journalism Fellowship

Listening to the voices of Black mothers has become even more critical in the context of America's maternal health crisis.

In 2022, there were approximately 22 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in the United States - rates far above any other high-income countries, according to a 2024 report from the Commonwealth Fund. In the U.S. maternal mortality is the highest for Black women, the report states.

The report also said persistent inequities in health care are a major reason Black women in the U.S are by far the most likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth. Most of these deaths - or more than 80% of them - are preventable, according to the report.

Panelists at Health Journalism 2024 in June explored solutions and ways journalists, researchers and clinicians can center the voices of Black mothers and their birthing experiences to change the narrative and efforts to improve maternal health outcomes.

Panelist Jade Kearney, CEO and co-founder of She Matters, a digital health platform that is designed to improve maternal mortality in minority communities, said she hopes journalists can change the narrative around Black maternal morbidity as an "American problem" rather than discuss the problem as a Black women or Black birthing folks issue.

If Black maternal health gets better, then maternal health as a whole gets better.

Jade Kearney, CEO and co-founder of She Matters

Jessica Bylander, deputy editor at Health Affairs, a national health care research journal, and moderator of the panel, asked speakers to talk about the ways journalists can report stories that explore systemic solutions in the health care system when reporting about issues that disproportionately affect Black women in the U.S.

Natasha Williams, associate professor at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, said one solution researchers and clinicians can explore is partnering with people who understand the issue and have real life experiences.

"We are experts in a certain area, but it's very critical for us to have all the right people in the room with us from the very beginning as we begin making these decisions," Williams said.

Health Affairs Deputy Editor Jessica Bylander speaks at HJ24. Photo by Zachary Linhares

Tracy Wang, a chief medical officer and researcher at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), added that when researchers partner with communities or people with real lived experiences, it's important to listen and create research questions that benefit everyone, build long-term trust and respect and provide adequate compensation for their service.

Kimberly Seals Allers, a founder of a technology nonprofit focused on maternal and infant health disparities, said her solution to American's maternal health crisis was to create the mobile app IRTH (the name comes from "birth" - but as Seals Allers says, she dropped the B for bias), which collects and shares health care reviews from Black and brown parents.

Irth app users are asked to rate and review how well their needs and requests were met, if they faced discrimination or bias during their hospital stay, or OB-GYN and pediatrician visits.

In addition the app creates a repository of reviews for Black and brown birthing people and turns these reviews into qualitative data. Seals said she works with hospitals to help them learn from the lived experiences of birthing people rather than from the dead ones.

"Why does someone have to die for us to recognize that there may be gaps in care?" Seals said. "If the community has a trusted tool, they will share their feedback and we can learn from the living. And that's really what we seek to do, to learn from the living and prevent deaths."

Candice Wilder is a reporter with Signal Cleveland, a nonprofit newsroom based in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a 2024 AHCJ Equity in Health Journalism Fellow.