A team of researchers is calling for comprehensive changes to U.S. health care and social policies to improve diagnosis and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions and mitigate the dramatic disparities that put women of color at significantly greater risks of morbidity and mortality compared with white women.

In a commentary published in the journal Health Affairs, the researchers proposed seven comprehensive changes to health care and economic policies to mitigate the burden of undiagnosed and untreated perinatal mental health challenges that are greatest among racial minority populations.

The researchers’ recommendations include a national training and certification program for health care providers; payment models that enable women to obtain services through community-based providers; paid family leave; expanded funding for perinatal psychiatry access programs; and access to safe, legal abortions and contraception. They also proposed poverty-mitigation strategies such as reinstating the federal child tax credit and implementing a universal basic income program.

The team said their recommendations are a call for reproductive justice – which includes rights to bodily autonomy, decisions to have or not have children and to live in safe, healthy environments.

During Health Affairs’ virtual briefing on April 3, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign social work professor and FRC Collaboratory member Karen M. Tabb Dina, the senior and corresponding author of the commentary, spoke about the urgent need for a comprehensive strategy to improve maternal health outcomes and promote equity.

“Perinatal mental health challenges are a microcosm for the U.S. health care system, bringing into focus gaps in equity, access, research data and social determinants of health,” said Tabb Dina, who is co-principal investigator on a grant-funded project that is examining the impact of racial bias and discrimination on women’s health care interactions during the perinatal period, defined as the time before and after giving birth.

Read the full story from the University of Illinois News Bureau.