“Racial disparities in maternal health outcomes are well-documented, often influenced by systemic factors such as health care access, socioeconomic conditions and other social determinants of health,” Jacquelyn Taylor, PhD, associate editor of the Journal of the American Heart Association, said in a Feb. 25 news release from the American Heart Association. “This study highlights that even after adjusting for socioeconomic status and high blood pressure, the risk for Black mothers remains significantly elevated.”
Here are three notes from the study:
- Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a type of life-threatening heart failure experienced during the last months of pregnancy or the first few months after delivery,
- Researchers analyzed 15 years of hospital discharge records for more than 7 million births in California to determine what effect chronic high blood pressure, neighborhood resources and other risk factors had on peripartum cardiomyopathy rates among Black mothers.
- The study found that Black mothers had a 3.1 to 3.5 times higher risk for developing peripartum cardiomyopathy both before and after adjusting the data for socioeconomic status and other risk factors.
Read the full study here.
