Project 1: Identifying effective and cost-effective interventions to reduce ethnic inequalities in maternal and neonatal health

Background

Women who are not white are more likely to die before, during and after birth than white women. The same is true for black and brown babies who are also more likely to die than babies who are white. A number of reasons have been given for these differences including structural racism and socioeconomic disadvantage. Research we already know about has found that there are several things we can do to change this.

Aims and Objectives

The main thing we want to find out is whether these interventions make enough of a difference to people's lives to justify the public money that will be spent on doing them.

Methods

We will first look for studies that have developed and tested ways at improving the health of black and brown mothers and/or babies. Once we have a list of these, we will ask a group of medical experts, policy makers and black and brown parents to help us decide which of these things we should study first. The intervention that is found to be the most promising will then be studied in more detail. For this, we will create an “economic model”, which will put together all the costs of the intervention (such as hospital stays and visits to doctors) and any saving made by improving the health of mothers and babies as a result of it. For example, if babies are healthier at birth they will stay fewer days in hospital. We will then compare these costs with improvements to mothers', babies' and families' lives.

Policy Relevance and Dissemination

This study will help improve the neonatal care given to black and brown mothers and babies and minimise the gaps in pregnancy and childbirth experiences compared to those of white women. We will share these findings with the Department of Health and Social Care, families who are affected by these experiences, charities and support groups. We will also publish our findings so that experts working in the area can learn about what we discovered.

Team

Principle Investigator: Oliver Rivero-Arias

PRU team members: Ramon Luengo-Fernandez, Fiona Alderdice, Marian Knight, Chris Gale, Jenny Douglas, Alexander Heazell, Neena Modi, Sara Kenyon, Rachel Plachcinski, Julia Sanders

Contact: ramon.luengo-fernandez@dph.ox.ac.uk or oliver.rivero@npeu.ox.ac.uk