Local Leaders: Asha Hassan, MPH
This year marks the 7th Annual Black Maternal Health Week, held from April 11-17, 2024. Founded by Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Black Maternal Health Week is a week of awareness, activism, and community-building aimed at amplifying the voices of Black Mamas and centering the values and traditions of the reproductive and birth justice movements.
To champion the empowerment of Black women and their families, Pro-Choice Minnesota is shining a spotlight on local leaders in reproductive justice. This initiative aims to elevate Black women's contributions in scholarship, maternity care, and advocacy spanning sexual, maternal, and reproductive health care, as well as related services, programs, and initiatives.
Asha Hassan, MPH, is a health services researcher working at the University of Minnesota Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity (CARHE). In 2020, Asha was named a Society of Family Planning Emerging Scholar, and in 2021 a National Birth Equity Research Scholar.
Her academic writing is published in several top health journals including, "Advancing Birth Equity in a Post-Dobbs US", published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Asha's research focuses on conceptualizing structural racism's relationship to family planning access and decision-making, understanding the reproductive health effects of police violence, and assessing the intersections of disability and reproductive justice in clinical policy. This work centers bodily autonomy and the reproductive justice principles neccessary to protect Black birthing people and promote Black maternal health.
Despite progress in healthcare, Black birthing individuals continue to endure alarming disparities, leading to significantly higher rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. These disparities underscore the urgent need for legislative action.
Minnesota must support Black birthing mothers facing systemic challenges by passing legislation in support of access to high-quality care, dignified treatment, resources for informed decision-making, and the right to parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.