NIH Grant to Address Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Disparities

December 8, 2020

***Posting with permission from Michigan State University**

FLINT, Mich., Dec. 8, 2020 – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 700 women die each year in the United States from pregnancy-related complications, and more than 25,000 women experience severe maternal morbidity. And severe maternal morbidity and mortality disproportionately affect African American (AA) women.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides $21 million to six institutions over five years to fund new research demonstrating how to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy-related complications and deaths. The project is supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.

MSU received a $3,944,351 NIH/NIMHD grant to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a multilevel intervention to address African American maternal morbidity and mortality in Genesee County and Kent County.

“African American women in the United States are three to four times more likely to have pregnancy-related complications and die than are non-Hispanic white women,” said Jennifer Johnson, C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University and PI on the grant. “Inequities creating worse outcomes for Black moms occur at many levels, including difficulty accessing prenatal services, racial discrimination in healthcare settings where they receive services, and lower quality care in settings that serve a high number of African American women. This project tests locally developed solutions to each of these issues to improve the entire continuum of care for African American women in our two target counties.”

“The goal of this research is to work with community partners to develop and implement an intervention at multiple levels to address disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality among Medicaid-insured women,” said Cristian Meghea, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Michigan State University and PI on the grant.

Intervention components were developed or co-developed by partners in Kent and Genesee counties, who include Black women, enhanced prenatal and postnatal care staff (including race-matched community health workers), and physician/health system staff and providers. These two counties include Grand Rapids and Flint, two cities with high rates of adverse maternal and infant health outcomes.

“This project builds on longstanding partnerships with community and policy partners, including Spectrum Health, Strong Beginnings – Healthy Start, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The project fits with the overarching goal of our program of research—which is to use the prenatal and perinatal period as a window of opportunity to improve the long-term health of women and their families and to reduce health disparities,” Meghea said.

“We are looking forward to working with Black moms and others from the target communities to improve outcomes for them and their families. This study will be among the first to use implementation science to scale and evaluate a multilevel intervention to reduce maternal health disparities. We are proud to build on and expand the work of our amazing community partners,” Meghea added.

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Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for 160 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

Established in March 2015, the MSU College of Human Medicine’s Division of Public Health addresses both immediate and long-term public health needs of Flint residents. With the support of $60+ million in external funding, emphasis is on health disparities and health equity solutions. Spartans work side-by-side with community partners and health care providers to encourage healthy behaviors, mitigate chronic diseases, identify environmental health risks, and examine the social factors that influence community health.

For MSU Public Health news on the Web, go to MSU Public Health News. Follow MSU Public Health on Twitter @MSUPubHealth.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Jill Vondrasek, Communications Director at Michigan State University Division of Public Health, 810-600-9185, vondras4@msu.edu; Jennifer Johnson, C.S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University, 810- 600-5669, jjohns@msu.edu; Cristian Meghea, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, meghea@msu.edu, 248-176-1043.