P3 (Pregnancy and Postpartum/Preconception) EQUATE (Enhancing Access and Quality to Achieve Equitable Maternal and Infant Health) Network
PROJECT PROPOSAL
Pregnancy-related stress, such as fear of childbirth or concern for the health of the baby, can be exacerbated by unique stressors that disproportionately affect Black women due to their intersecting sociocultural identities. These chronic stressors not only impact mental health but also contribute to long-term physical health risks, including cardiovascular complications.6 While there is extensive research documenting perinatal health disparities among Black women, including racial differences in maternal and infant mortality, Less is known about mental health disparities. Research indicates that Black perinatal women are more likely to report depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation compared to White and Latina women, yet they are less likely to receive adequate professional mental health support. Notably, Black mothers’ reports of depressive symptoms often do not align with traditional mental health assessment tools, which tend to focus on psychological symptoms such as depressed mood and hopelessness. Many Black women, in contrast, may report somatic or self-critical symptoms. Furthermore, if perinatal Black women initiate maternal mental health services, they often face barriers, including lack of follow-up or continued care, provider bias, and disregard for their concerns. Despite these challenges, there is limited data on how race-related experiences affect Black perinatal mental health outcomes.
SIGNIFICANCE AND INNOVATION
Most maternal mental health screening tools are validated on participants who are majority White, thus overlooking the significance of being both Black and pregnant. This ‘color blind’ approach fails to recognize the influence that race-related stressors have on the maternal mental health symptoms and perpetuates the disparities described above. While scholars have begun to document the impact of health inequities in maternal health settings, none quantify the mental health impacts of institutional, interpersonal, systemic, structural, and intrapersonal race-related stressors in a perinatal context. With Pilot for Equity funding support from the American Heart Association (AHA), the author seeks to conduct secondary psychometric testing, including confirmatory factor analysis, validity, and reliability analyses, of the Prepartum Form for Evaluating Race-Related Psychological Stressors (PP-FERRPS)©. This screening tool, developed from the voices and experiences of separate samples of perinatal Black women and maternal mental health clinicians, aims to capture the impact of perinatal race-related stressors on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) such as depression and anxiety.
Project Goals
The purpose of this project is to conduct additional validation testing of the PPFERRPS© to confirm its factor structure and assess its clinical utility in diverse prenatal settings
Duration:
07/01/2025 - 06/30/2026
Partnering Organization(s):
University of Alabama
- Other Non-Federal - American Heart Association
Total Award Amount:
$49,810.88