Researchers at the University of Oklahoma's Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing are examining national data to address disparities in maternal health outcomes. According to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Indigenous mothers are three times more likely to die during or after pregnancy compared to non-Hispanic White mothers. Over 90% of these deaths are preventable.
According to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences release, the project, led by associate professor Leremy Colf, Ph.D., focuses on organizing and analyzing existing data. "We're taking large data sets that look at the entire population to figure out exactly the contributing factors. If you look at data from ten people or one hundred people, you might identify something, but you are still only looking at one factor at a time," Colf said.
A key objective of the project is to understand barriers to healthcare access for pregnant individuals, particularly those who are vulnerable or marginalized. Colf's team is working to identify which factors—such as low income, minority status, or rural residency—are most strongly linked to maternal morbidity and mortality.
Since August 2024, the initiative has been consolidating anonymized public data into accessible software, which could assist future research. Oklahoma, with a high number of vulnerable populations, is expected to benefit from the findings. "There is no reason that we should have as many mothers and babies suffering and dying as we do; it is an absolutely critical problem," Colf stated in the same release.
The project is supported by substantial funding, including a $10,448,621 grant from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.
