Equitable Motherhood

Can every mother access the maternal healthcare she needs, regardless of where she lives or who she is?

The Equitable Motherhood project aims to bridge the geographic disparities in maternal health by leveraging Human-centered GeoAI. The GISense Lab is building a multi-state data and modeling infrastructure (Texas, Florida, South Carolina) that links over 4.3 million individual birth records and severe maternal morbidity with provider networks, levels of maternal care, and neighborhood conditions. By developing a 2SFCA-based dynamic accessibility measure, we quantify maternity care access disparities to identify “maternal deserts”. Beyond mapping disparities, we are developing “what-if” policy engines using advanced Reinforcement Learning algorithms. Such cutting-edge algorithms could help agencies explore how to reallocate scarce resources, such as workforce, funding priorities, etc., to improve maternal health outcomes and bridge disparities in access.

Resources:

Birth Certificate Data Catelog: FL, TX

Data Distributions: