Maternal mortality in the United States is higher than in peer nations and has not decreased since 1990. Beyond mortality, severe maternal mortality impacts far too many women. Not only are these high rates alarming, but notable racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities exist. These inequities are highly regional, with women living in the rural southeast part of the United States, including the Mississippi Delta, having the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. Unfortunately, these disparities have proven to be stubbornly resistant to interventions, necessitating an innovative multifaceted approach focused on community practice, building trust, and prioritizing patient voices. To meet this need, this proposal aims to establish the Mississippi Delta Research Center of Excellence for Maternal Health with the goal of addressing preventable maternal mortality, decreasing severe maternal morbidity, and promoting maternal health equity in partnership with the Mississippi Delta community. This patient-clinical linkages intervention study will evaluate the effectiveness of a multilevel and multisector communication and health literacy strategy to increase trust and engagement in postpartum healthcare among women in the Mississippi Delta, with a specific focus on Black women, their families, and their communities.
These research projects both have the overarching goal of partnering with the community to determine and meet the needs of pregnant and postpartum women in the Mississippi Delta and address the disparities within maternity health and health care outcomes.
Identified as high risk pregnancy
Postpartum mothers/parents 18-45 years
Resident of the one of 5 target counties (Washington, Bolivar, Scott, Humphreys, and Carroll)
Maternal healthcare providers in target counties
not identified as high risk pregnancy
18 years of age postpartum
cesarean birth
non-resident of the 5 target counties
Single group
The PEN-3 Intervention Model
BehavioralThe PEN-3 Model is a sociocultural model for planning and assessing participant behavior within the context a cultural phenomenon. It will be used to assess intervention impact on patient-clinical linkages in the Mississippi Delta.
Improve trust in the healthcare system
Mixed methods approach using Trust in Physician Scale \& Researcher developed qualitative tool
Increase maternal health literacy (patient and provider perspectives)
Brief literacy screening tool to evaluate health literacy in the health system (Qualitative and Quantitative Measures
Increase engagement in the maternal health care system (patient-clinic linkages)
Contraceptive Counseling measure tool to evaluate the patient experiences with provider care and vice-versa; minimally 2 post-partum clinec visits in postpartum period
Strengthen structuring of family support systems
Family crisis coping response (F-COPES) measure to determine patient (mother) and family perceptions and experiences with structuring family support fo postpartum care period.
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Jackson State University
Lead sponsor
University of Mississippi Medical Center
Collaborator
Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)
Collaborator
Mississippi State Department of Health
Collaborator
