just a few years ago New Jersey was among the worst states in the nation for maternal and infant Health outcomes black women were seven times more likely to die from child birth than their white counterparts and a black baby more than three times more likely to die before their first birthday than a white baby the state has made efforts to implement a permanent program to address the problem by launching what's known as Mia the New Jersey maternal and infant Health Innovation authority to continue our under the- Dome reporting series I'm joined by its president and CEO Lisa assari to share what the agency has accomplished in its first [Music] year Lisa so great to have you here in the studio with us it's been one year since the launch of Mia as you call it right what have been the major initiatives that you've undertaken in this last year so thanks first of all so much for having me here it's a delight to be here with you and to really recognize me as first year anniversary the first year was really a year of building we really built the infrastructure for the state Authority built relations ships built the Mia team um and we're actually involved very deeply in the development of the building that we are building in the city of Trenton the new Innovation Center so it's really been a year of building talk to me a little bit about the Doula program that's been launched so we are focused on building the perinatal Workforce and as you know the Doula provider type is essential to that so we spent quite a bit of time in the Mia history working with an advisory group of douas and creating a community- based curriculum for New Jersey so they're learning in medical school uh how to be a doula is that what that looks like well they're learning um not in medical school but in the community how to be a duelan how to support women from their Community we typically recruit women from the community to help people in the community there's also I saw um been a recent partnership with Access Link to help with Transportation I know transportation's been a big point that first lady Tammy Murphy has talked about with nurture NJ what is that partnership going to allow you to do so it is a part parip with Access Link a part of New Jersey Transit that provides transportation for pregnant women to get to appointments we often hear some of the barriers are just life I can't get a ride my schedule doesn't agree with such such and such and so Access Link has really stepped up to help us provide extra transportation for women in um Trenton and many of the other high-risk cities what can you tell us about the programs that have launched what impact they're having what the data is showing about the improvements so thank you for that black women are seven times more likely to die from a pregnancy related complication than their white counterparts which is really alarming um you know as much as we have made progress in our overall numbers we still have tremendous work to do around eliminating disparities um the work is ongoing uh we didn't get here overnight and so we certainly will not get out of here overnight but one of the strategies many of the strategies that we're using to address the disparities are really looking at this from a comp comprehensive uh vantage point so really engaging other sectors it's about Transportation it's about housing it's about child care it's about nutrition it's about the neighborhood and the safety that I feel or I don't feel and so I think I'm proud that we've engaged 22 state agencies that are really helping us in that work so as you mentioned Access Link is transportation but there's so many others that are really thinking about maternal and infant Health in their work and hospitals of course are reporting their data to you are you tracking all of that to see if these numbers are coming down we absolutely are we have a maternal data center that really tracks and maintains all of that information and we are monitoring that each and every day we are also working with the Rutger School of Public Health on the evaluation of the nurture andj initiatives to date so more data to come but it is something that we continue to monitor we don't have a lot of time left but there's some interesting data that I've seen recently about the impact that a man has on gestation and the health of the sperm impacting whether a woman is likely to get pre-eclampsia is that something that's come into the conversation here in New Jersey at all is it time to include men in this conversation around maternal and infant health so we've been including men we have initiatives that are focused on fatherhood we see men as integral Partners in this work and so there are many things that we're doing to engage fathers and so I haven't heard the study that you've referenced but certainly um our engagement of fathers is something that is ongoing and something that we think is very important to the point where we're even thinking of classes for men to create male douas to support other fathers that are really going through this uh pregnancy and you know child birth and postpartum period with their Partners learning to be an advocate because we know so many times men see or Partners see when a woman is struggling when the health just doesn't seem right especially following child birth right absolutely so really trying to create those male Advocates those male Champions the strong men in the families and the communities that will really help women uh overcomes many of the challenges you're absolutely right thank Thank you Lisa assari president and CEO of the New Jersey maternal and infant Health Innovation Authority thank you so much for taking time today thank you thank you for having me this program is made possible in part by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting a private Corporation funded by the American people [Music]