Dr. Irene Headen is an Assistant Professor of Black Health in the Department of Community Health and Prevention at the Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health.

Neighborhood context is a key multilevel determinant of racial disparities in maternal health. However, neighborhoods themselves are multidimensional in nature and their impact on health extends beyond simple additive accumulations of individual factors across the social, physical, and built environment. Employing methods that better account for this complex and multidimensional nature of neighborhood context can facilitate improved understanding of neighborhoods as a driver of maternal health disparities as well as lead to ways in which they can be better leveraged to enhance the effectiveness of interventions to improve Black maternal health. This talk will explore insights from my research using composite measures of neighborhood opportunity access that allow for more complex characterization of neighborhood context in relation to racial/ethnic disparities in key weight-related maternal health outcomes, including gestational weight gain and postpartum weight retention. The talk will conclude by proposing systems based methods as a next step in continuing to capture the complex and dynamic aspects of neighborhood context in ways that can facilitate translation of evidence into action to improve Black maternal health.

Join via Zoom on Oct. 20: https://temple.zoom.us/j/95190288624