Fighting racism in reproductive health
Jody Steinauer, Director of Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health & Rebecca Jackson, Director of the ZSFG Division of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences
We want to express our support for the centuries-overdue national and global calls for addressing systemic racism and racial injustice, which were inspired most recently by the tragic killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
We stand with the movement against anti-Black racism. We commit to deep reflection and action – on individual, institutional and structural levels – to understand how we enact racism and to take deliberate steps to dismantle it. As the leaders of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health and the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) Ob-Gyn Division in which the Bixby Center lives, we represent the Bixby and ZSFG clinicians, researchers, and educators committed to doing this work, and we hope you will join us.
Below are resources from Bixby members to better understand and address the myriad ways racism manifests in sexual and reproductive health and health care.
Research
- Beyond same-day long-acting reversible contraceptive access: a person-centered framework for advancing high-quality, equitable contraceptive care (Kelsey Holt, Reiley Reed, Sarah Wulf, Christine Dehlendorf)
- Black women in poor neighborhoods more likely to experience interpersonal racism (Brittany Chambers, Monica McLemore)
- Doula training offers an innovative way to support formerly incarcerated women (Monica McLemore)
- The Giving Voice to Mothers study: Inequity and mistreatment during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States (Monica McLemore, Nicholas Rubashkin)
- Health care experiences of pregnant, birthing and postnatal women of color at risk for preterm birth (Monica McLemore)
- Impact of policies targeting alcohol use during pregnancy varies by race (Sarah Roberts, Nancy Berglas)
- Information and power: Women of color’s experiences interacting with health care providers in pregnancy and birth (Monica McLemore)
- A novel method for involving women of color at high risk for preterm birth in research priority setting (Monica McLemore)
- Nurses can lead in providing ethical pregnancy care to Black women (Monica McLemore)
- Racial inequities in treatment for pain after cesarean birth (Ifeyinwa Asiodu)
- Structural racism increases the risk of preterm birth and infant mortality (Brittany Chambers, Monica McLemore)
- What about the men? Perinatal experiences of men of color whose partners were at risk for preterm birth (Monica McLemore, Kimberly Baltzell)
Training
- Advanced contraceptive counseling: Practical & sustainable steps for addressing bias and patient concerns (Beyond the Pill)
- Managing unconscious bias (California Prevention Training Center)
- Social determinants of health (California Prevention Training Center)
- Structures & self: Advancing equity and justice in SRH (Innovating Education in Reproductive Health)
Commentary
- Abolish race-based medicine in kidney disease and beyond San Francisco Examiner (Monica Hahn)
- An inconvenient truth: You have no answer that Black women don’t already possess Black Women Birthing Justice (Ifeyinwa Asiodu, Monica McLemore)
- Beyond silence and inaction: responding to racism in the healthcare workforce Obstetrics & Gynecology (Andrea Jackson)
- Connecting police violence with reproductive health Obstetrics & Gynecology (Andrea Jackson)
- The dangerous rise of the IUD as poverty cure New York Times (Christine Dehlendorf & Kelsey Holt)
- Ensuring our research reflect our values: The role of family planning research in advancing reproductive autonomy Contraception (Christine Dehlendorf, Reiley Reed, Edith Fox, Dominika Seidman, Jody Steinauer)
- An equal-opportunity virus in a nation of inequity Morning Consult (Ifeyinwa Asiodu)
- First, do no harm: Why philanthropy need to reexamine its role in reproductive equity and racial justice Health Equity (Monica McLemore)
- Race, research and women’s health: Best practice guidelines for investigators (Monica McLemore, Ifeyinwa Asiodu)
- Racial injustice and family planning: An open letter to our community (Biftu Mengesha)
- Reproductive (in)justice—two patients with avoidable poor reproductive outcomes The New England Journal of Medicine (Andrea Jackson)
- To prevent women from dying in childbirth, first stop blaming them Scientific American (Monica McLemore)
- We asked Black women how to tackle structural racism Apolitical (Brittany Chambers)