Celeste N. Lee

Black mothers are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white mothers. These disparities persist across education, income, and healthcare access (Schramm 2022), raising urgent questions about the roles of racial bias, discrimination, and systemic racism. While existing research highlights how physicians’ biases affect patient outcomes (Matthew 2015), the influence of other healthcare professionals—particularly nurses—remains largely overlooked. This project centers nurses as critical, yet understudied, actors in maternal healthcare. Relying on a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, this research examines two main questions: How do nurses understand and explain the Black maternal health crisis? What is the relationship between nursing interventions, racial bias, and maternal health outcomes? This research advances our understanding of how frontline healthcare workers shape outcomes for Black mothers and makes significant contributions to medical sociology, health equity scholarship, and maternal healthcare delivery.