By Patti Neighmond @ Public Health section @ NPR.org, May 10

[....] Black mothers die at a rate that's 3.3 times greater than whites, and Native American or Alaskan Native women die at a rate 2.5 times greater than whites, according to a report out this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yet, the report concluded, roughly 3 in 5 pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. The racial disparity in maternal death rates is a dramatic argument for prevention efforts that address diverse populations, says Dr. Wanda Barfield, director of the Division of Reproductive Health and assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service [....]

When addressing racial disparities, it's important to note the difference in underlying chronic disease risk, Barfield says. Cardiovascular disease is more common among black women and can occur at earlier ages than in white women, she says. It may be that cardiovascular symptoms are never identified in these women or that they simply cannot overcome social factors such as a lack of transportation to access health care, she says.

In addition, Barfield says that some inequities can be explained by variation in hospital quality. "This can mean that effective interventions may not be occurring for black women," she says, or that the timing of the intervention may not be appropriate. "Minority women are delivering in different and lower-quality hospitals than white women," she says, adding that this could clearly affect outcomes [....]