Searching for Home and Health: Understanding Black Maternal and Child Health through the Return Migration

 

Maternal and child health outcomes are an important measure of overall community well-being. Health and Human Services(HHS)Region Five (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin) has the worst Black infant mortality rates in the United States. HHS Region Five was also the destination for many Black people during the Great Migration and contributes heavily to the Return Migration as well. The connections between Black maternal and child health disparities and Black migration patterns in the United States are understudied. The overall objective of the study is to investigate the associations between the migration patterns of Black women and maternal and child health outcomes, especially infant mortality. This project seeks to achieve the following objectives:

 

1.To describe the internal US Black migration patterns from 2000-2020 to,from, and within Region Five.

2.To establish the relationship between county level measures of structural racism and Black migration patterns within Region Five and to the South from 2000-2020.

3.To establish the relationship between Black migration patterns from 2000-2020 from and within Region Five and Black infant mortality rates.

 

This project is highly innovative as it studies associations that have not been adequately addressed in current social, population, and health sciences. Highlighting the intersectional impact of place and structural racism on maternal health outcomes will provide new insights and potential policy implications for mechanisms to mitigate disparate health outcomes in the Black community.