Geographic, Health Care Access, Racial Discrimination, and Socioeconomic Determinants of Maternal Mortality in Georgia, United States

Abstract

Over the past decade, the United States has been taking steps to reduce its rising maternal mortality rate. However, these steps have yet to produce positive results in the state of Georgia, which tops the list of all 50 states with the highest maternal mortality rate of 46.2 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births for all women, and a maternal mortality rate of 66.6 deaths per 100,000 live births for African American women. In Georgia, several social determinants of health such as the physical environment, economic stability, health care access, and the quality of maternal care contribute to the high maternal mortality rate. Addressing these determinants will help to reduce the state’s maternal mortality rate. This commentary discusses the relationship between social determinants of health and maternal mortality rates in Georgia. It also proposes strategies for reversing the trend.We conducted an ecological study of the relationship between social determinants of health and maternal mortality in Georgia. We searched PubMed and Google Scholar and reviewed 80 English articles published between 2005 and 2021. We identified five key social determinants associated with high maternal mortality rates in Georgia - geographic location of obstetric services, access to health care providers, socioeconomic status, racism, and discrimination. We found that expanding Medicaid coverage, reducing maternal health care disparities among the races, providing access to maternal care for women in rural areas, and training a culturally competent health workforce, will help to reduce Georgia’s high maternal mortality rate. Copyright © 2021 Armstrong-Mensah et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.

Socio-economic and cultural factors associated with the utilization of maternal healthcare services in Togo: a cross-sectional study

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Social determinants of health pave the path to maternal deaths in rural Sri Lanka: reflections from social autopsies

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Social determinants of health pave the path to maternal deaths in rural Sri Lanka: reflections from social autopsies

“…Moving beyond mere identification as risk factors for maternal deaths [ 48 ], we observed that structural determinants such as poverty, low educational status, and elementary occupation levels had forced families towards social isolation, creating a synergistic effect to obtain minimal or no support from society. However, this study did not reflect any discrimination due to cast, ethnicity, racism, culture, or religion-related to maternal deaths as reported elsewhere in the world [ 49 ].…”