Chair Brooks-Powers asks for racial demographics of pregnant people in custody
Brooks-Powers asks for the racial demographic breakdown of pregnant people in DOC custody over three years. Merrill says CHS does not collect racial demographic information, though most women in care are Black and brown and all pregnancies are treated as higher risk.
What is the racial demographic breakdown of pregnant people in Department of Correction custody over the last three calendar years?
So CHS doesn't collect racial demographic information, although if it's clinically indicated, we would seek that from the patient.
We do know, it was mentioned in testimony, that the majority of women in our care are black and brown women.
Black women in particular have higher risks of pregnancy and childbirth-related incidents.
So really we're treating every pregnancy by nature of the woman and the patient being in custody as higher risk.
So we're not stratifying by race in that way.
Sorry.
Thank you.