Our Commitment to Changing the Culture of Medicine—Resources
ACOG’s clinical guidance, statements of policy, and clinical resources acknowledge racism and bias in the delivery of obstetric and gynecologic care and incorporate strategies for combating it. We encourage all obstetrician–gynecologists and other health care professionals to join our efforts. To learn more about ACOG’s work, read the below resources.
ACOG recognizes that racism and bias negatively affect the delivery of health care. We encourage our members and other health care professionals to reflect on their potential biases; commit to learning from the history of racism in obstetrics and gynecology; and work toward providing more inclusive, respectful, and culturally informed care. ACOG offers free online courses and other educational opportunities dedicated to this effort.
Promoting Public Policy
ACOG is dedicated to achieving public policies that help eliminate racial inequities and improve obstetric and gynecologic health. Our advocacy has led to the creation of new policies that combat inequities in health care.
One of ACOG’s top legislative priorities, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, was signed into law in 2018 after years of tireless advocacy on the part of ACOG and its partners. The act provides federal funding for maternal mortality review committees (MMRCs), which are interdisciplinary groups of local experts who review maternal deaths, determine the causes using data collection, and identify locally relevant ways to prevent future deaths. Today, nearly every state in the country has an MMRC.
ACOG built on this success by strongly advocating for and endorsing the Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act, which passed in 2022 and provides funding and support for programs that specifically address racism and bias with the goal of eliminating inequities in maternal health.
ACOG is proud to endorse the Black Maternal Health Momnibus, which addresses the unacceptable and disproportionate rate of maternal deaths among Black women.
To learn more, read about ACOG’s work around eliminating preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.
Follow @ACOGAction on X to learn more about ACOG’s advocacy efforts.
Reaching Across the Nation
In partnership with the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, ACOG is working to reduce maternal mortality and eliminate disparities in outcomes through the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) Technical Assistance Center.
The AIM Technical Assistance Center supports a national, cross-sector, data-driven maternal safety and quality improvement initiative focused on increasing and supporting the adoption of evidence-based maternal safety best practices to promote safe maternal health care for every U.S. birth.
AIM assists state-based teams, jurisdiction-based teams, and hospital and health system teams with the implementation of patient safety bundles. These bundles help health care teams improve the quality and safety of maternity care with the goal of reducing maternal deaths and severe maternal morbidity and decreasing the stark racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes. This effort includes engaging health care organizations, public health systems, patients with lived expertise, and other stakeholders within a national partnership to help quality improvement teams implement evidence-informed and expert clinical consensus-based obstetric patient safety best practices.
AIM has integrated the concept of respectful care, which reinforces a culture of patient safety based on equity, into each bundle to bring the respectful care concept into measurement strategy and data collection. Work towards equity must be executed despite structural and institutional obstacles that hinder progress and reinforce inequitable foundations.
Every Mom. Every Time.
Learn how ACOG is combating maternal mortality.
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