S2E5: Black Women and Health Equity: Spotlight on Black Maternal Health and COVID-19

CBW Collective member Dr. Whitney Pirtle speaks with Dr. Monica McLemore about her career trajectory, moving from her long-time position as a clinical public health nurse to becoming a prominent researcher on Black maternal health and reproductive justice. They discuss the importance of centering and listening to Black women in reaching health equity, and why this matters especially in the current COVID-19 pandemic crises. Dr Monica McLemore, a tenured associate professor in the Family Health Care Nursing Department at the University of California, San Francisco, an affiliated scientist with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, and a member of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Dr. McLemore retired from clinical practice as a public health and staff nurse after a 28-year clinical nursing career. Her research is grounded in reproductive justice across the reproductive spectrum including abortion, birth, cancer risk, contraception, family planning, and healthy sexuality, pleasure, and consent. She has over 50 peer reviewed articles, OpEds and commentaries and her research has been cited in places including the Huffington Post, Lavender Health, a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine report. AND three amicus briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States. She is an elected member of the governing council and chair-elect for Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) section of the American Public Health Association. She is recipient of numerous awards and was recently inducted into the American Academy of Nursing in October, 2019. Whitney Pirtle PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliated faculty in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies and Public Health at the University of California Merced. Her areas of expertise are in race and nation, racial/ethnic health disparities and equity, Black feminist sociology, and mixed methodologies. Pirtle oversees the Sociology of Health and Equity (SHE) Lab at UC Merced and is a Cite Black Women Collective member.