Patient-clinical Linkages to Improve Trust and Engagement in Postpartum Healthcare

Summary

Maternal mortality in the United States is higher than in peer nations and has not decreased since 1990. Beyond mortality, severe maternal mortality impacts far too many women. Not only are these high rates alarming, but notable racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities exist. These inequities are highly regional, with women living in the rural southeast part of the United States, including the Mississippi Delta, having the highest rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. Unfortunately, these disparities have proven to be stubbornly resistant to interventions, necessitating an innovative multifaceted approach focused on community practice, building trust, and prioritizing patient voices. To meet this need, this proposal aims to establish the Mississippi Delta Research Center of Excellence for Maternal Health with the goal of addressing preventable maternal mortality, decreasing severe maternal morbidity, and promoting maternal health equity in partnership with the Mississippi Delta community. This patient-clinical linkages intervention study will evaluate the effectiveness of a multilevel and multisector communication and health literacy strategy to increase trust and engagement in postpartum healthcare among women in the Mississippi Delta, with a specific focus on Black women, their families, and their communities.

These research projects both have the overarching goal of partnering with the community to determine and meet the needs of pregnant and postpartum women in the Mississippi Delta and address the disparities within maternity health and health care outcomes.

Conditions

• Family Dynamics
• Trust in Healthcare System
• Family Structure
• Health Literacy
• Contraception
• Maternal Behavior
• Postpartum Mood Disturbance

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

The PEN-3 Intervention Model

The PEN-3 Model is a sociocultural model for planning and assessing participant behavior within the context a cultural phenomenon. It will be used to assess intervention impact on patient-clinical linkages in the Mississippi Delta.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Mississippi State Department of Health

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of Mississippi Medical Center

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

  collaborator OTHER

• Jackson State University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mary Shaw, PhD · Jackson State University

• Mary Shaw, PHD, M.ED · Jackson State University

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

45 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-06-01

Primary Completion

2029-06-30

Completion

2030-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations