The maternal health of American Indian and Alaska Native people: A scoping review

Ailish Burns, Teresa DeAtley and Susan E. Short

Social Science & Medicine, 2023, vol. 317, issue C

Abstract: Indigenous people in the United States experience disadvantage in multiple domains of health. Yet, their maternal health receives limited research attention. With a focus on empirical research findings, we conduct a scoping review to address two questions: 1) what does the literature tell us about the patterns and prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people? and 2) how do existing studies explain these patterns? A search of CINAHL, Embase and Medline yielded 4757 English-language articles, with 66 eligible for close review. Of these, few focused specifically on AI/AN people's maternal health. AI/AN people experience higher levels of maternal mortality and morbidity than non-Hispanic White people, with estimates that vary substantially across samples and geography. Explanations for the maternal health of AI/AN people focused on individual factors such as poverty, cultural beliefs, and access to healthcare (e.g. lack of insurance). Studies rarely addressed the varied historical and structural contexts of AI/AN tribal nations, such as harms associated with colonization and economic marginalization. Research for and by Indigenous communities and nations is needed to redress the effective erasure of AI/AN people's maternal health experiences and to advance solutions that will promote their health and well-being.

Keywords: Maternal health; Health disparities; Morbidity; Mortality; Indigenous health; Scoping review; Severe maternal morbidity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622008905
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:317:y:2023:i:c:s0277953622008905

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115584

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().