Crisis or An Act of Contemporary Racism? A Flint Effect on Maternal Health Disparities

Keywords: Black geographies; maternal health disparities; Flint Water Crisis; environmental injustice
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 21

Abstract

This purpose of this article is to determine if there is a Flint effect on maternal health disparities. The research objective stated is a portion of the overall dissertation research that will examine severe maternal morbidity rates from 2012-2017 across three geographical scales: state, city, and individual. The study period is divided into two phases, pre-(2012-2013)-and-post-(2016-2017) to account for effects of the Flint Water Crisis (FWC) (2014-2015). The current study will examine the difference in maternal health disparities in Flint compared to a city that is demographically and economically similar. In order to conduct this analysis, we collected SMM rates from both the pre-and-post-FWC study years through the Michigan Inpatient Database (MIDB). We focused solely on Non-Hispanic Black and Non-Hispanic White race codes to determine the maternal health disparity gap. This exclusion was decided due to the fact that African American women tend to have a significantly higher rate of morbidity than White women. We used twenty of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 21 SMM diagnosis codes as an indicator for the maternal health status. Using R statistical software, we analyzed cities that were comparable to Flint using nine socio-demographic variables from the Bureau of Census. The result matched Flint with Saginaw. We used difference-in-difference methodology to compare the difference in SMM rates pre-and-post-FWC. Overall, African American women in Michigan are 2.42 times more likely to experience a SMM compared to White women post-FWC. The result of the Flint effect on maternal health disparities is still in progress.