Video Spotlight
In this timely and thought-provoking presentation, Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Dr. Lynn Roberts (CUNY) discuss how slavery and the history of reproductive medicine intersect, the impact of medical racism on Black birthing people, the national reproductive justice movement, and recent efforts to address racial inequalities in maternal mortality and morbidity in New York City:
Find Books
Pregnant While Black: Advancing Justice for Maternal Health in America by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2023Pregnant While Black is a hopeful exploration of the issues pregnant Black women face in America.
Black Disability Politics by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2022Schalk explores how issues of disability, broadly construed, have been and continue to be incorporated into Black activism, from the 1970s to the present. In so doing, she establishes a new lineage for disability politics, one that allows the work of contemporary Black disability justice activists to be central.
Sickening by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2021An event-by-event look at how institutionalized racism harms the health of African Americans in the twenty-first century.
Just Get on the Pill by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2021Understanding the social history and urgent social implications of gendered compulsory birth control, an unbalanced and unjust approach to pregnancy prevention.
Just health : treating structural racism to heal America by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2022This book examines how deep structural racism embedded in the fabric of American society leads to worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy for people of color.
The practical playbook III : working together to improve maternal health by Location: Available OnlinePublication Date: 2024It highlights examples of effective cross-sector partnerships that are making real improvements in health outcomes for maternal health populations & offers practical tools & strategies for practitioners working in this space.
Find Articles
The following articles are a selection of those available to you through BU Libraries:
- "Intersectionality in Black Maternal Health Experiences: Implications for Intersectional Maternal Mental Health Research, Policy, and Practice" by Shantesica M. Gilliam et. al (2024). Available here.
- "How Social Welfare and Health Professionals Understand "Race," Racism, and Whiteness: A Social Justice Approach to Grounded Theory" by Todd Vanidestine and Elizabeth Aparicio (2019). Available here.
- "Raising The Stakes To Advance Equity In Black Maternal Health: Article examines efforts to improve maternal health equity for Black women"
by Michele Cohen Marill (2022). Available here. - "Racial Inequality and the Staggering Toll on Life Expectancy" by Marcella Nunez-Smith (2023). Available here.
External sources:
- The State of Health Disparities in the United States (National Library of Medicine, 2017)
- Racism, Sexism, and the Crisis of Black Women’s Health (BU, 2023)
- Race, Inequality, and Health (KFF, 2024)
- Implicit Bias and Racial Disparities in Health Care (American Bar Association, 2021)
