The Center for Birth Justice (CBJ) partnered with the MENDS study (Maternal Health Interventions in California Hospitals: Understanding Approaches & Implementation to Advance Health) to help turn a study of community-generated insights into accessible, actionable resource sheets and a report for healthcare systems.

The MENDS study, led by Sarah Garrett, PhD, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF, focused on addressing preventable inequities in maternal health outcomes and care experiences that Black and Pacific Islander communities face. 

Using a community-based participatory research approach, MENDS brought together Black and Pacific Islander people who had recently given birth and asked how to make maternity care better and safer for their communities. The result is a report and collection of resource sheets to help hospitals and health systems improve maternal health by incorporating community priorities.

Study recommendations call on hospitals to listen more deeply to patients, respect their preferences and boundaries, address biases, provide culturally and community-concordant care, achieve community-defined qualities of high-quality maternity care, strengthen accountability, and build more meaningful relationships with the communities they serve. The MENDS study doesn’t just document inequities; it recognizes community members as the experts in identifying solutions for safer, more respectful maternity care.

Grounded in birth and reproductive justice, CBJ provided technical and communications support to help ensure that the wisdom and priorities shared by Black and Pacific Islander people could reach health systems and support efforts toward meaningful change.

CBJ's work on the project included the full-scale graphic design of the MENDS report and the design of accompanying resource guides for hospitals and healthcare systems, with collaborative assistance on the report introduction.

Through this partnership, CBJ helped connect the community-generated research from the MENDS study to action by providing resources that provide hospitals and health systems with concrete guidance to make maternity care safer, more respectful, and more responsive to the people they serve.