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As part of NYAM’s 175th anniversary celebration in 2022, we’re introducing Then & Now, a new event series that looks back in order to look forward. Then & Now will explore historical roots of critical and timely issues to both understand how we got to where we are today, and to also explore bold new approaches to move health forward. NYAM’s historical experts will bring us along a timeline of innovation to the modern day.
For this event, NYAM Library Director Paul Theerman and NYAM Senior Scholar-in-Residence Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, are partnering to present a panel discussion around race, maternal mortality in historical context, and the general policy and programmatic approaches to addressing the health needs of women and their children today and for the future.
Differing outcomes in maternal health and mortality strongly correlate with race. Though overall maternal health has greatly improved over the past century—dropping from 607.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1915 to 23.8 in 2020—the improvement is not equally shared. Today, Black mothers die at rates roughly three times those of white and Hispanic mothers.
Our concern extends to the present day—visit our Maternal & Child Health page to learn more about our current initiatives, which include NYAM's Women's Health Research and Wellbeing Workgroup, who were instrumental in the creation of this event.
Speakers:
- Paul Theerman, PhD: The History of Maternal Health: A Persistent Challenge.
- Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP, moderator and presenter: NYAM Women’s Health Research & Wellbeing Workgroup: A Focus on Equity and Maternal Mortality.
- Mimi Niles, PhD, MPH, CNM: Integrating Midwives to Build Birth Equity.
- Rosa Ghullikie, Listening to Mothers.
- Toni Stern, MD, MS, MBA; Rose Maria Van Zuilen, PhD, AGSF; Roseanne L. Flores, PhD; and Connie Newman, MD: Working Towards Solutions for Maternal Child Health and Child Health Inequities in the COVID-19 Era: Remaining Challenges in Telehealth Access and Use.
- Wendy Wilcox, MD, MPH, MBA, FACOG: Planning, Organizing and Developing the Agenda to Eliminate Maternal Mortality and Severe Morbidity.
An audience Q&A and discussion will follow a series of brief presentations.
About the Speakers
Roseanne L. Flores, PhD, is Professor of Psychology, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College as well as a member of the Human Rights faculty. She is a Developmental Psychologist by training. In 2013 she participated in the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities Translational Health Disparities course that provided her with a foundation for much of her current research and scholarship, which focuses on environmental risk factors such as community violence, poverty, and poor nutrition and their relationship to the health and educational outcomes of minority children and families.
Rosa Ghullikie speaks about her experience with two high-risk pregnancies, delivering at Woodhull Medical Center, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP, joined The New York Academy of Medicine as a Senior Scholar-in-Residence in 2019. She is President and Professor Emerita of SUNY Upstate Medical University, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, Columbia University and Associate Director of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, a national program modelled after the Nova award-winning program, the Harlem Hospital Injury Prevention program.
Dr. Laraque-Arena is board certified in Pediatrics and in Child Abuse Pediatrics. Her scholarly work has focused on adolescent health behaviors, injury prevention, especially related to penetrating trauma, mental health integration in primary care settings, and global child health. Most recently her scholarly focus has been on maternal-child health, health equity and health disparities. She was elected as a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine (2000) and the American Pediatric Society (2005), served as member to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Committee on Integrating Primary Care and Public Health (2011) and Co-Chaired the NYS Governor’s Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Disparate Racial Outcomes (2018-2019). She currently serves on the board of Directors of Prevent Child Abuse America and the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation.
Connie B. Newman, MD, is an endocrinologist and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine and Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford, UK. She is the 2018–2019 President of the American Medical Women’s Association. Dr. Newman, a physician-scientist with experience in the fields of drug safety and cardiovascular disease, and she has designed, conducted and analyzed large long term cardiovascular outcome trials of statins. She is committed to education about lipids, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, and she recently chaired the Special Programs Committee of the Endocrine Society which develops and implements CME programs and activities at ENDO and throughout the year.
Mimi (Paulomi) Niles, PhD, MPH, CNM, is Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. She is a theorist, educator, researcher and certified nurse-midwife. Her work explores the potential of integrated models of midwifery care in creating health equity in historically disenfranchised communities. She is trained in utilizing critical feminist theory, as theorized by Black and brown feminist scholars, and qualitative research methods to implement policy and programming rooted in intersectionality and anti-racist frameworks. As a researcher, she hopes to generate midwifery knowledge as a tool to build equity and liberation for marginalized and minoritized people and grow the profession of midwifery in the U.S.
Prof. Niles is an active member of the midwifery community both locally, nationally, and globally. Currently, she is the only appointed midwife to sit on the New York City Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. Dr. Niles serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) and the New York Birth Center Association (NYBCA).
Toni Stern, MD, MS, MBA, is Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science and Senior Associate Dean for Gender Equity in Clinical Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine/Mount Sinai Health System. She has significant experience in gender-based advocacy and health policy. As Senior Associate Dean, she works to promote the Icahn Mount Sinai gender equity agenda with a particular focus on clinical faculty and trainees. She also serves as System Vice Chair of Quality and Clinical Transformation and Chief Patient Experience Officer in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, and chairs her department’s Health Equity Task Force. She is a member of the School-wide Faculty Diversity Council and the Admissions Committee for the MD program. She is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and health care quality and management.
Beyond Mount Sinai, Dr. Stern has been a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District II Legislative Committee since 2015. Through this work, she has gained insight and influence in gender equity and related policy development.
Paul Theerman, PhD, has served as Director of the NYAM Library and Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health since 2018. In this capacity he oversees library operations, including cataloging and description, digitization, collection development, preservation and conservation, user services, with a special emphasis on public engagement. Over a 40+ year career in museums, archives, libraries and academia he has focused his efforts on connecting the interested and knowledgeable pubic with contemporary issues in sciences, technology, and medicine. He is a co-organizer of the Medicine and Health Working Group of the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and regularly teaches the history of public health in the graduate program in public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Rose Maria van Zuilen, PhD, AGSF, is Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Department of Medical Education, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami.
Dr. van Zuilen is the Director of the Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine curriculum for medical students and the Associate Director of the Educational Development Office. Since 2018, she has served as the President of the Women in Academic Medicine group at the Miller School of Medicine. She has been engaged in medical student education and faculty development for over 20 years. She has been actively involved as a contributor, reviewer, and peer mentor for AAMC’s MedEdPORTAL. The curricular resources she and her colleagues published on MedEdPORTAL have allowed universities across the globe with more limited resources to access high quality educational materials. She has been recognized for her work with awards for mentoring, service, and educational scholarship and serves as Associate Director, Academy of Medical Education Scholars (AMES).
Wendy Wilcox, MD, MPH, MBA, FACOG, serves as the Chief Women’s Health Service (WHS) Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals system, a new role that organizes all women’s health offerings under one office. Dr. Wilcox works with the WHS clinical council to plan, organize, and develop policies related to obstetrics, gynecology, well woman care, maternal mortality, maternal morbidity, documentation and revenue capture and growth.
She previously served as Departmental Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County. Most recently, Dr. Wilcox was responsible for the design and implementation of the NYC-funded NYC Health + Hospitals maternal mortality and morbidity reduction initiative, which established the Maternal Medical Home, which provides enhanced wrap-around services for pregnant persons at risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes. In 2018, she served as co-chair of the New York State Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Disparate Racial Outcomes.
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