From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! A study of nearly one million births over a nine-year period in New Jersey found that Black mothers were 20% to 25% percent more likely than white mothers to deliver their babies by an unplanned, unscheduled Cesarean section , a surgical procedure. Researchers and public health officials say they’re working to identify what’s driving this racial disparity in delivery methods and find ways to close the gap.
“The availability of this data is critical to setting an accurate benchmark ...
and achieving our goal to make New Jersey the safest and most equitable state to deliver and raise a baby,” New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy said in a statement . The study , published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked at medical histories and birth records from 2008 to 2017 across 68 hospitals in the Garden State. Co-author and researcher Molly Schnell, an associate professor of economics at Northwestern University, said this data was extremely detailed and comprehensive.
“We can basically see whether or not Black mothers are more likely to have C-sections because they have risk factors that make them better candidates for the procedure,” she said. Greater Philly health systems remove race from clinical algorithms that guide decisions in kidney, lung and pregnancy care The regional coalition of health systems is reevaluating the role of race in tools.