Axios - Trump administration efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives are alarming public health researchers trying to reduce the outsized mortality rate for Black mothers in the U.S.
The pandemic put a spotlight on long-standing inequities in health care, including a pregnancy-related death rate for Black women that is more than three times the rate for white mothers. About 80% of these deaths are preventable. The concern is that President Trump's sweeping executive order could derail efforts to improve early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of pregnancy and birth complications, and data collection on maternal deaths.
Case in point: Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, an assistant dean and professor at Tufts University, receives NIH funding to research maternal health inequities among Black women. She hasn't heard anything from her contacts at NIH about the status of the grant since Trump's executive order, she said....
The push against DEI could also curtail opportunities for aspiring Black physicians, nurses, midwives and other health providers.
HHS Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he'd continue to address maternal mortality if confirmed, but he's been noncommittal about interventions to decrease racial disparities in maternal health. He refused to provide a yes or no answer when asked during a confirmation hearing whether he'd consider programs that target maternal mortality in Black women as "health DEI programs." More
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