Killing Black Mothers

This dissertation seeks to answer the question of: Why do Black women in the United States experience higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity? and what efforts at the national and state level are being made to address these inequities? The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the influence of race and racism on reproductive health, specifically maternal mortality and morbidity, of Black women in the United States. The goal of this doctoral dissertation is to explore maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity of Black women in the US to gain a deeper understanding of the upstream and downstream factors that influence maternal outcomes and then to understand the policies and programs that can be used to address them through applying an equity lens. The hope is to highlight the influence of racism on MM and SMM and propose strategies to mitigate the influence of racism through policy and program