• Abigail R Koch and Stacie E Geller.
• 1Center for Research on Women and Gender, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
• J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2019 Aug 1; 28 (8): 1153-1160.

AbstractBackground: Little is known about racial or ethnic differences in the potential preventability of pregnancy-related deaths, or the provider, systems, or patient factors associated with those deaths. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of pregnancy-related deaths among black, Hispanic, and white women between 2002 and 2015 in Illinois using Illinois Department of Public Health maternal mortality data. We compared the distribution of women's characteristics and calculated race- and ethnicity-specific pregnancy-related mortality ratios (PRMRs) per 100,000 live births. We describe the proportion of deaths that were determined to be potentially preventable by race and ethnicity and critical factors associated with pregnancy-related deaths by cause. Results: There were 130, 33, and 109 pregnancy-related deaths of black, Hispanic, and white women, respectively, in Illinois during the study period. Overall, black women's PRMR was nearly four times that of white women (32.6 vs. 8.9 per 100,000 live births). The PRMR for Hispanic women under 30 years was lower than for white women, but that advantage disappeared after age 30. Emboli and vascular accidents were the most common underlying cause of death overall. Over a third of deaths were potentially preventable. Provider factors, particularly delays in diagnosis and treatment and inappropriate treatment, were cited in 56.1%, 71.4%, and 50.0% of black, Hispanic, and white women's preventable deaths, respectively. Conclusion: Surprisingly, racial disparities in maternal mortality were not associated with statistically significant differences in the cause of death or class of contributing critical factors in this small, single-state analysis; further study in aggregate or pooled data with deeper qualitative assessment of individual cases is, therefore, required to understand how to narrow racial disparities in maternal outcome. If aggregate or pooled analysis showed systematic racial or ethnic differences in committee findings, it would be important to assess whether those differences were due to committee bias or other factors.

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