SynthesisHealth & place2022
Structural racism and adverse maternal health outcomes: A systematic review.
Synthesis in Health & place, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 94 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
94 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Addressing the U.S. maternal health crisis: a systematic review of healthcare access barriers, disparate outcomes, and effective interventions.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Do Antenatal Interventions Improve Maternal and Perinatal Outcomes for Migrant Women Living in High-Income Countries and What Guidelines Exist for Migrant Women? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) · 2025Pooled it
- Racialized migrant women's discrimination in maternal care: a scoping review.International journal for equity in health · 2025Pooled it
- Racial Discrimination and Multiple Health Outcomes: An Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.Medical principles and practice : international journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre · 2025Pooled it
- The relative importance of neighborhood environment features in explaining preeclampsia risk using machine learning.Pregnancy (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Women's Satisfaction With Birth Experience According to Skin Color: A Cross-Sectional Study.Birth (Berkeley, Calif.) · 2026Article
- The Voice Unheard: Women's Perception of Maternal Health Care Post-Flint Water Crisis.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Neighborhood Threat of Eviction over Time and Risk of Preterm Birth in Black American Women.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- PTSD-Like Symptoms Among Postpartum Black Women: The Lasting Impact of High-Risk Pregnancies, Birth Trauma, and Mistreatment During Perinatal Care.Research in nursing & health · 2026Article
- Social and structural disparities in family presence and engagement in the NICU.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2026Article
- A Qualitative Ecological Exploration of Black Perinatal Mental Health and Wellbeing.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Experiences of Blame Among Pregnant Black Women During Prenatal Care.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Binational Analysis of Maternal Mortality Between Brazil and Portugal in 2020-2023: A Population-Based Epidemiological Study.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2026Article
- Measuring Structural Racism to Advance Health Equity: A Scoping Review of Quantitative Approaches.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Review
- Epigenome-wide DNA methylation and spontaneous preterm birth among pregnant black women.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Article
- A Spatial Analytic Approach to Maternal Health Following Hurricane Florence (2018).Maternal and child health journal · 2026Article
- Listening to Unheard Voices: Addressing Systemic Racism to Improve Maternity Care for Black Women After Perinatal Loss.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- A Qualitative Study of the Impact of Police Violence on Black Birthing People.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Temporal Trends in Pregnancy Rate, Live Birth Rates, and Rates of Gestational Outcomes, 2012-2023.O&G open · 2026Article
- Structural Racism, Geographies of Opportunity, and Maternal Health Inequities: A Dynamic Conceptual Framework.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
34 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In the United States, racial disparities in adverse maternal health outcomes remain a pressing issue, with Black women experiencing a 3-4 times higher risk of maternal mortality and a 2-3 times higher risk of severe maternal morbidity. Despite recent encouraging efforts, fundamental determinants of these alarming inequities (e.g. structural racism) remain understudied. Approaches that address these structural drivers are needed to then intervene upon root causes of adverse maternal outcomes and their disparities and to ultimately improve maternal health across the U.S. In this paper, we offer a conceptual framework for studies of structural racism and maternal health disparities and systematically synthesize the current empirical epidemiologic literature on the links between structural racism measures and adverse maternal health outcomes. For the systematic review, we searched electronic databases (Pubmed, Web of Science, and EMBASE) to identify peer-reviewed U.S. based quantitative articles published between 1990 and 2021 that assessed the link between measures of structural racism and indicators of maternal morbidity/mortality. Our search yielded 2394 studies and after removing duplicates, 1408 were included in the title and abstract screening, of which 18 were included in the full text screening. Only 6 studies met all the specified inclusion criteria for this review. Results revealed that depending on population sub-group analyzed, measures used, and covariates considered, there was evidence that structural racism may increase the risk of adverse maternal health outcomes. This review also highlighted several areas for methodological and theoretical development in this body of work. Future work should more comprehensively assess structural racism in a way that informs policy and interventions, which can ameliorate its negative consequences on racial/ethnic disparities in maternal morbidity/mortality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.