The United States is facing a maternal mortality and morbidity crisis, which has been particularly acute for Black and indigenous women. Increasingly, structural racism is being recognized as a key driver of these inequities. And the COVID-19 pandemic has put additional strain on the systems and organizations that provide perinatal care and wraparound services, which could lead to an increase in these inequities.
In this brief, part of a larger series on COVID-19 and maternal health equity, we draw on interviews with maternal care stakeholders and available literature and reports to assess if and how our current data systems provide the information needed to track inequities in maternal health outcomes, as well as what data collection efforts must be prioritized to establish accountability and reduce inequities during and after the pandemic.
