Concurrent Sessions 2 - (NBCC CE Credit: #1 hr and Conference Attendance Credit: #1 hr)

Workshop Leaders: Deanna D. Granger, Renata Sledge, Jeanna R. Knight

Summary
The World Health Organization states the maternal mortality rate in the United States is higher than that of other affluent countries. African American expectant and new mothers in the U.S. die at about the same rate as women in countries such as Mexico and Uzbekistan (Martin, 2017). Research surrounding the understanding, treatment, and prevention of maternal mortality offers limited explanations or solutions (Creanga et al., 2014; MacDorman, Declercq, Cabral, & Morton, 2016). Phillips (2018) recommended obstetrical and maternal care for African American women should include understanding the patient's individual experience versus a collective experience as one approach to reducing maternal mortality disparities. Approaching patient and provider interactions within a framework of the hermeneutic dialogue (Spence, 2001; Philips, 2007; Grassley & Nelms, 2008) enables the patient, their family, and the health care provider to create the conditions for developing the understanding necessary to provide person-centered care

Objectives
-- To understand the patient's (African American women) individual experience versus a collective experience as one approach to reducing maternal mortality disparities.
-- To analyze the interdisciplinary context of maternal mortality, including the literature of historical trauma, health disparities, and the philosophy of hermeneutic phenomenology.
-- To describe how the patient system and the health care system bring tradition and understandings that shape their horizons.

Subject Codes: diversity, health care, motherhood
Population Codes: African Americans, marriage and family therapists/clinicians
Method and Approach Codes: systematic literature review, clinical/therapeutic orientation, qualitative methodology