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VALHALLA – Westchester Medical Center Health Network is launching a Center for Women’s Health Equity with locations at HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston and Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla.
The center is a new care program to address the social, economic, cultural and racial determinants of health that can result in increased maternal morbidity and mortality among women across the Hudson Valley.
The program, supported by a $750,000 state grant, will be the first of its kind in the region and will have an initial goal of reducing the leading causes of death among pregnant women by integrating specialists in maternal-fetal medicine, whose expertise is the care of complex medical problems affecting pregnant women, with its heart and vascular program clinicians to take a more proactive and holistic view of elevated risk factors among women, particularly those of color.
“We are addressing one of the greatest challenges that exists in public health today – the socioeconomic and racial determinants of health that results in the premature death of women of color across the Hudson Valley,” said Dr. Sean Tedjarati, director of Obstetrics/Gynecology at Westchester Medical Center. “By bringing together and integrating all of these necessary services, we aim to eliminate clinical silos and bridge the gaps that will help empower patients and community partners while improving care and saving lives.”
Pregnant African American and Latina women are up to four times more likely than their Caucasian counterparts to die of cardiovascular complications such as health disease, embolism, and hemorrhage during pregnancy, according to the State Health Department, which said other leading causes of morbidity include mental health disorders and diabetes.
The state agency said that 78 percent of those deaths were preventable and 100 percent of the deaths caused by hemorrhage, mental health conditions, and cardiomyopathy were preventable.
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