Blog Post

Maternal Health Visionary Spotlight: Dr. Joia Crear-Perry, National Birth Equity Collaborative founder and president, calls on us to value every woman to achieve maternal health equity

By Bethany Kotlar, MPH

Dr. Joia Crear-Perry was led to a career fighting to eliminate racial disparities in maternal and infant health through her own experiences as a Black mother. Pregnant with her first daughter and entering medical school, she struggled to find a female Ob/Gyn who was taking patients. While she had always thought she would be an ophthalmologist like her father, she found she loved spending time with mothers and infants. The premature birth of her second child opened her eyes to a glaring error in the way race and ethnicity was thought of in the medical field. As she went into early labor, she knew the risk factors for preterm birth, but the only one that was included in her medical textbook that fit her situation was being Black. Yet, she also knew there was no true genetic basis for race. So how could race be a risk factor?

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Date Added
March 22, 2021

Citation
Kotlar, Bethany. 2019. Maternal Health Visionary Spotlight: Dr. Joia Crear-Perry, National Birth Equity Collaborative founder and president, calls on us to value every woman to achieve maternal health equity. Maternal Health Task Force. https://www.mhtf.org/2019/07/19/maternal-health-visionary-spotlight-dr-joia-crear-perry-national-birth-equity-collaborative-founder-president/?utm_source=MHTF+Subscribers&utm_campaign=7dd2323e09-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ac9c53ad4-7dd2323e09-183816001 Available online: https://www.mhtf.org/2019/07/19/maternal-health-visionary-spotlight-dr-joia-crear-perry-national-birth-equity-collaborative-founder-president/?utm_source=MHTF+Subscribers&utm_campaign=7dd2323e09-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ac9c53ad4-7dd2323e09-183816001