Each day in the US, hundreds of birthing people suffer a severe pregnancy-related complication known as Severe Maternal Morbidity (SMM). Recently, the rate of SMM has continued to increase and disparities persist. Black women insured by Medicaid are nearly twice as likely to experience SMM compared to White women. In a post-Dobbs era, many scholars ...Read more >

Following the Dobbs decision people in abortion-restrictive states who require in-person abortion care are now forced to travel to less-restrictive states. We know that traveling for out-of-state abortion increases costs, requires arrangements (time off work, childcare, travel), and reduces privacy reinforcing existing socioeconomic inequalities. Residential segregation influences structural racism in different neighborhoods. Structural racism is ...Read more >

Dr. Daniel Felipe Martín Suárez-Baquero is a Nurse Scientist an Assistant Professor in the department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing. Dr. Suárez-Baquero seeks to understand, through qualitative methods, the experiences, perspectives, and strategies related to midwifery and reproductive justice, shedding light on structural factors contributing ...Read more >

Dr. JaNelle M. Ricks is a public health behavioral scientist and health equity advocate with additional training and expertise in health communication and policy. Dr. Ricks is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion in the College of Public Health at the Ohio State University. She uses mixed-methods, with an ...Read more >

Dr. Mayra Pineda-Torres is an Assistant Professor at the School of Economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is an applied microeconomist who uses quasi-experimental methods and observational data to examine topics related to women’s and teenagers‘ welfare. In particular, she is interested in the health and economic consequences of family planning policies and ...Read more >

Cydney Murray, JD, is a Law and Policy Analyst at the Center for Public Health Law Research (CPHLR) at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Cydney seeks to develop a body of research that examines the role and impact of doulas in abortion care through legal epidemiology methods within a Reproductive Justice framework. She earned ...Read more >

Dr. Lucrecia Mena-Meléndez is a first-generation Latina immigrant, scholar of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and family planning, and leader. She is passionate about advancing equity in abortion, family planning, and SRH in the US and Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly among minority populations. Her research broadly examines how social-demographic (eg, ethnoracial identity, rural-urban ...Read more >

Dr. Rachel Logan is a public health researcher dedicated to improving sexual/reproductive health care experiences and outcomes in multiply marginalized communities. Her work seeks to mitigate and eliminate healthcare-related harm by addressing mistrust and disrespect, especially among those racialized as Black. She has used critical theories and reproductive justice in her work—a human rights-based perspective ...Read more >

Background: Medication abortion provided via telehealth has greatly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Telehealth can increase access to health services for individuals who may face many barriers to coming in person, such as transportation, distance to a clinic, inability to take time off work or need for childcare. Studies have shown that direct-to-patient telemedicine abortion ...Read more >

Marissa Velarde is a PhD student within Maternal and Child Health at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Marissa received her MPH from Boston University and spent 10 years working in the U.S. and Latin America on collaborative research to advance access to sexual and reproductive health and inform policy. She also has experience ...Read more >