Stark racial disparities in maternal and infant health in the U.S. have persisted for decades despite continued advancements in medical care. The disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for people of color increased attention to health disparities, including the longstanding inequities in maternal and infant health. Additionally, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, increased barriers to abortion and may widen the existing disparities in maternal health. Given these factors, there recently has been increased attention to improving maternal and infant health and reducing disparities in these areas.

This brief provides an overview of racial disparities for selected measures of maternal and infant health, discusses the factors that drive these disparities, and provides an overview of recent efforts to address them. It is based on KFF analysis of publicly available data from CDC WONDER online database, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) National Vital Statistics Reports, and the CDC Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. While this brief focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and infant health, wide disparities also exist across other dimensions, including income, education, age, and other characteristics. For example, there is significant variation in some of these measures across states and disparities between rural and urban communities. Data and research often assume cisgender identities and may not systematically account for people who are transgender and non-binary. In some cases, the data cited in this brief use cisgender labels to align with how measures have been defined in underlying data sources. Key takeaways include:

Large racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes persist. Pregnancy-related mortality rates among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) and Black women are over three times higher than the rate for White women (63.4 and 55.9 vs. 18.1 per 100,000). Black, AIAN, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (NHPI) women also have higher shares of preterm births, low birthweight births, or births for which they received late or no prenatal care compared to White women. Infants born to Black, AIAN, and NHPI people have markedly higher mortality rates than those born to White people.

Read the full article about racial disparities in maternal health by Latoya Hill, Alisha Rao, Samantha Artiga, and Usha Ranji at KFF.