Webinar: Prenatal to Postpartum - Maternal Health Disparities in the U.S.
About the webinar
In the United States, Black women have three times the risk of maternal mortality (MM) than white women and a significantly higher risk for severe maternal morbidities, such as preeclampsia and other cardiovascular conditions. Furthermore, the issue of high maternal mortality also stems from social stigma and health inequities. For example, regardless of insurance status, socioeconomic status, age, or severity of their condition, the pregnancy-related mortality rate for Black women with college degrees is 5.2 times that of their white counterparts. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated maternal mortality for women of color and worsened maternal health disparities. This webinar will bring together leading experts to discuss the causes of these significant maternal health disparities and discuss innovative solutions to combat this serious issue in healthcare. The discussion will include leveraging new technologies and policies and providing patient-centered care that is responsive to the needs of patients no matter their insurance status, race, socioeconomic status, or age. Other solutions will include expanding healthcare coverage and access to comprehensive, high-quality, safe reproductive healthcare. Finally, at an organizational level, the discussion will highlight quality improvement and patient safety initiatives that hospitals can undertake to address the disparities in maternal mortality rates between women of color and white women.
Distinguished Speakers
Moderator: Ms. Lindsay Moore-Fields
Program Manager, CHI
Lindsay Moore-Fields is a program manager at CHI. Lindsay leads CHI’s Science Runway program, a national STEM mentorship platform that supports and inspires young women, especially women of color, in STEM and healthcare to address the broader racial and gender disparities impacting these fields. Lindsay also plays a central role in the Center’s education and research initiatives. She is responsible for developing and executing educational health equity content for over 1,000 healthcare professionals on topics including the disproportionate impact of chronic diseases on communities of color, strategies to increase BIPOC participation in clinical trials, and the effects of maternal health disparities’ on African-American communities. Before her current role, Lindsay served as a project manager for the Black Healthcare & Medical Association (BHMA) and a healthcare analyst in CHI’s internship program focusing on grant writing and review, stakeholder communications, and program development. A member of Brown University’s Class of 2021, Lindsay received a bachelor’s degree in health and human biology and served as the President of the Lambda Iota Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated from 2019-2021. Her interests include maternal health disparities, health equity, and health advocacy.
Jane van Dis, MD is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Rochester in NY. She is Co-Founder of Equity Quotient a consultancy for equity analytics both in and outside of healthcare wherein she and Dr. Esther Choo created a tool to measure equity analytics. In 2018, she co-founded TIMES UP Healthcare with Dr. Esther Choo where she worked to address systemic misogyny and racism within healthcare. Dr. van Dis was named to the Birth Equity Project sponsored by the California Maternity Quality Care Collaborative. She co-founded OB Best Practice (in partnership with OBG Project), and is co-founder of Diana Consulting. She was recently Advisor and Medical Director to MavenClinic, the nation's first unicorn digital health start-up for women's health. Currently, she is Chief Medical Officer for Biorithm, a new device in maternity care offering a complete obstetric remote monitoring solution. She assists in the administration of the non-profit OB Mom Group – a group of 5700+ women ObGyns. She advises multiple health care startups (Modern Fertility, Bobbie, FLEX, Aura, Béa and OathCare), she recently advised FemTechLab in London. While in her leadership role at OB Hospitalist Group, she served on the Equity Committee to address issues around systemic racism in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Dr. van Dis is a national expert and speaker on equity in healthcare has provided grand rounds and published on equity in healthcare. She is a single mom to twins. Follow her on Twitter @janevandis.
Dr. Stacie Geller, PhD
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Director, UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender
Stacie Geller, Ph.D. is G. William Arends Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Professor, Division of Academic Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. She is the Director of the UIC Center for Research on Women and Gender and the National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. Dr. Geller is a health services researcher and epidemiologist with expertise in women’s health issues, maternal morbidity and mortality, with a special emphasis on postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). She has a well-established national and international research career, having published over 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts, been awarded numerous research grants and conducted several NIH-funded clinical trials.
Dr. Geller’s work in maternal health focuses on factors associated with maternal morbidity and mortality. Dr. Geller developed an innovative model for early identification of high-risk pregnant women and has done extensive work in Illinois to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. As a member of two maternal death review committees in Illinois, she is leading the statewide effort to examine severe maternal morbidity.
Dr. Geller’s work extends to global women’s health as well. She has conducted several studies related to the safety and efficacy of misoprostol to reduce postpartum hemorrhage in South East Asia and Africa. Dr. Geller has also engaged in several initiatives to improve maternal and newborn health in Maori women in New Zealand. She collaborated in implementing the first national review to assess potential preventability of severe maternal morbidities in the country.
Dr. Crystal Pirtle Tyler PhD, MPH
Chief Health Officer, Rhia Ventures
Crystal Pirtle Tyler PhD, MPH brings over 15 years of experience advancing reproductive and maternal health equity. As the Chief Health Officer at Rhia Ventures, she translates the needs of the women and birthing people most affected by systemic inequity into programming that fosters equitable reproductive health products and services. Most recently, Crystal served as the Executive Director of Ci3 at the University of Chicago, a research center addressing the social and structural determinants of adolescent reproductive health and well-being through design, storytelling, play, and policy change.
Crystal began her career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta first as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer then as an Epidemiologist within the Division of Reproductive Health. There, she served as a subject matter expert on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and translating research to public health and clinical practice. From CDC, Crystal became the Director of the Michigan Public Health Institute’s Center for Child and Family Health, where she implemented systems level improvements to promote equity in the quality and availability of public health programs. She also served as a Senior Research Leader at IBM Watson Health, where she supported state implementation of Medicaid policy changes to advance maternal and child health outcomes.
Crystal is a trained facilitator and strategic planner who serves on the Board of Directors for the Society of Family Planning. She has published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Journal of Adolescent Health, Contraception, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, among others. Crystal completed both her Ph.D. and MPH in Epidemiology at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, respectively, and her Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies at Spelman College.
