Title:Closing the racial disparities gap with maternal and child health

Since beginning in April 2020, the D.C. Safe Babies/Safe Moms initiative at MedStar Health has been addressing the racial disparities gap. According to Angela D. Thomas, the program’s executive lead and vice president of healthcare delivery research for MedStar Health, “because we’ve had such tremendous outcomes we want to be a national model for how to deliver care and improve maternal child outcomes.”

Thomas is charged with ensuring that the initiative fulfills its promised goals to the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, who funds the effort. Experienced in operations and science, she applies both to lead the initiative.

Her professional interests focus on the intersection of patient safety and health equity. Thomas got into health care because of her interest in gynecology and obstetrics. A concern for racial disparities in maternal child health led her to pivot to public health and research.

Safe Babies/Safe Moms is a full circle moment for Thomas as she observes better outcomes for patients and a closing of the racial disparities gap. Black birthing individuals who receive prenatal care under Safe Babies/Safe Moms when compared to white birthing individuals who did not receive prenatal care under Safe Babies/Safe Moms have fewer cases of severe maternal morbidity, low birth weight babies, very low birth weight babies, pre-term births, and nulliparous or first-time cesarean births.

During her second pregnancy, DC resident Brittany Caldwell was referred to Safe Babies/Safe Moms by her midwife. Caldwell was grieving the passing of her father, and facing challenges with housing and employment. Thinking that no one could help her, Caldwell says that Safe Babies/Safe Moms exceeded her expectations. She was referred to a grief counselor, and a lawyer to resolve her employment and housing problems.

Thomas sees the line of sight on how her work positively impacts the lives of real moms, real birthing individuals, real children, and real families. She is grateful for the MedStar Health clinical leads across Women’s & Infants’ Services, Pediatrics, Georgetown University’s Health Justice Alliance Perinatal Law program as well as community partners Community of Hope and Mamatoto Village as they helped to highlight and meet the needs of the local community. Community of Hope allowed them to address an obstetrics desert where high care obstetrics was not available while Mamatoto Village has offered an expansion for greatly needed lactation support.

“It is gratifying to see that we can address the very thing that brought me to health care—maternal and child care— and the very thing that brought me to research: closing the disparities gap,” says Thomas.