Exposures to structural racism and racial discrimination among pregnant and early post‐partum Black women living in Oakland, California

Abstract

Research supports that exposure to stressors (e.g., perceived stress and racism) during pregnancy can negatively impact the immune system, which may lead to infection and ultimately increases the risk for having a preterm or low‐birthweight infant. It is well known that Black women report higher levels of stressors at multiple timepoints across pregnancy compared with women of all other racial and ethnic groups. This study addresses gaps in the literature by describing pregnant and early post‐partum Black women's exposures to structural racism and self‐reported experiences of racial discrimination, and the extent to which these factors are related. We used a cross‐sectional study design to collect data related to exposures to racism from pregnant and early post‐partum Black women residing in Oakland, California, from January 2016 to December 2017. Comparative analysis revealed that living in highly deprived race + income neighborhoods was associated with experiencing racial discrimination in three or more situational domains (p = .01). Findings show that Black women are exposed to high levels of racism that may have negative impacts on maternal health outcomes.

The Disproportionate Burden of the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Pregnant Black Women

“…They also reported knowing more people who had died from COVID-19. These findings reflect the well-recognized disproportionate toll of the pandemic on the health and economic stability of Black communities in the US ( Cyrus et al, 2020 ; Kantamneni, 2020 ; Millett et al, 2020 ; Poteat et al, 2020 ), indicating structural racism ( Chambers et al, 2020 ).…”

Preterm birth and nativity among Black women with gestational diabetes in California, 2013–2017: a population-based retrospective cohort study

“…A group of Black and Brown women scholars in obstetrics gynecology, maternal fetal medicine, family planning, and public health recently asserted that "despite evidence describing the relationship between structural racism, health outcomes and healthcare care experiences in the literature by transdisciplinary experts in the social sciences, humanities, legal studies, public health, and health services research, knowledge construction by obstetricians, perinatologists, and gynecologists about the impact of structural racism on PRH inequity is lacking" [29]. Quantitative public health research on PRH, specifically PTB, by Black women scholars provide substantial evidence, with both scientific and cultural rigor, on the utility of correlating adverse PRH outcomes among Black birthing communities with traditional and novel measures of structural racism, such as neighborhood level segregation and census tract data [34][35][36][37], and county-level disparities in incarceration and elected officials [38]; 3) Conceptualization and Measurement: The exclusion of white women as a control group for all three gestational groups (early PTB, late PTB, and early term) allows for better examination of within group variations among Black women birthing in California hospitals based on nativity [8,39] and other clinical factors without reinforcing race as a biological construct or advantage in examining the racialized phenomenon of pregnancy, GDM, and PTB among Black women [40]. Likewise, utilization of interaction analysis and backward stepwise regression modeling allows for the operationalization of intersectionality in quantitative population health research [18,[41][42][43].…”

Maternal post-traumatic stress and depression symptoms and outcomes after NICU discharge in a low-income sample: a cross-sectional study

“…A recent publication by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Neonatal Research Network found that neurodevelopmental impairment has increased across all ethnic groups and not just minorities (increase from 2006 to 2014: black infants, 70%; Hispanic infants, 123%; white infants, 130%) [ 45 ]. Studies have demonstrated that concepts like structural racism and discrimination are associated with maternal health outcomes [ 46 – 49 ] and future work should be conducted to demonstrate how they might impact our findings.…”