Health Outcome and Social Determinants of Health in the Neighborhood Project

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The health outcome identified by the Neighborhood Project: - severe maternal morbidity (SMM) is a serious problem in maternal health. Globally, SMM has been declining, with recent reports showing a prevalence rate of between 0.53% and 6.78% (Hazlina et al., 2022). However, in the United States, this problem has been increasing. Each year, more than 50,000 U.S. women experience unexpected outcomes of labor or delivery that result in significant short-or long-term health impacts (Hazlina et al., 2022). Nearly 700 women in the U.S. succumb to complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth (Hazlina et al., 2022), indicating that SMM is a life-threatening condition that needs timely intervention and appropriate care.
One of the social determinants of health described in the project is low socioeconomic status (SES). SES is an important factor related to medical outcomes. When SES is low, medical care is inadequate, leading to adverse health outcomes. In pregnant women, low SES increases the risk of adverse maternal outcomes (Boyles et al., 2021). Studies show that low-income earners are at a higher risk of maternal death than high-income earners. This factor impedes maternal healthcare utilization, such as prenatal care at the facility-based delivery. According to (Kim et al., 2018), inadequate prenatal care is associated with poor obstetric outcomes, including preterm delivery, obstetric hemorrhage, preeclampsia, eclampsia, stillbirth, and gestational diabetes. Women with low SES have limited chances of receiving quality prenatal care, meaning they are at a greater risk of experiencing obstetric complications.
Income is also highly associated with delays in access to care, the decision to seek care, and the quality of care. Delay in decision-making about seeking care occurs due to fear of the hospital cost or the absence of a reliable decision-maker (Hazlina et al., 2022). Moreover, low income can cause a delay in transportation, slowing down the arrival of pregnant women at the appropriate facility. To some extent, they ...