ABSTRACT

Pregnancy-related death, the death of a woman during or within one year after pregnancy, is between three and four times more likely to occur in Black women than White women. To better understand communication about this public health crisis, we examined features of news coverage on maternal mortality in 155 newspaper articles. Very few articles included a clear definition of the problem, and only about a third mentioned that these deaths are largely preventable. Additionally, 61% referenced the racial disparity, but within those, most did not discuss substantive causes of inequities. In terms of message features, about one third of articles used a patient narrative, with less than 10% referencing a celebrity’s patient experience. Very few (5%) articles included information about the history of mistreatment of Black patients in American health care. Together, the findings suggest current newspaper coverage does not effectively address social determinants of maternal health outcomes.

摘要

与怀孕有关的死亡，即妇女在怀孕期间或怀孕后一年内死亡，黑人妇女发生的可能性是白人妇女的三到四倍。为了更好地了解有关这场公共卫生危机的传播，我们检查了 155 篇报纸文章中关于孕产妇死亡率的新闻报道特征。很少有文章明确定义了这个问题，只有大约三分之一的文章提到这些死亡在很大程度上是可以预防的。此外，61% 的人提到了种族差异，但在其中，大多数人没有讨论造成不平等的实质性原因。在信息特征方面，大约三分之一的文章使用了患者叙述，不到 10% 的文章引用了名人的患者经历。很少 (5%) 文章包含有关美国医疗保健中黑人患者虐待历史的信息。总之，研究结果表明，目前的报纸报道并未有效解决孕产妇健康结果的社会决定因素。