Shabbir Ahmad, DVM, MS, PhD
Pregnancy-related mortality in California has been increasing. Since pregnancy-related mortality is an indicator of general maternal health, increasing maternal mortality suggests that serious maternal morbidity is also increasing. The California Department of Public Health’s Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health (MCAH) Program, under the leadership and direction of Dr. Shabbir Ahmad, has begun to address the growing and alarming trends in pregnant women and mothers’ health.
Beginning in 2004, the MCAH Program began the California Pregnancy-Associated and Pregnancy-Related Mortality Review (CA-PAMR) comprised of medical and nursing leaders from throughout California. This project is assessing all women who died within a year of a live birth or fetal death, beginning with the 2002 cohort of births. The goal of the project is to determine whether maternal death was pregnancy-related, the cause of death, and what factors (community, patient, health care facility, and health care professional) contributed to the death.
Due to large disparities in mortality rates, an emphasis has been placed on deaths of African-American women by selecting a higher proportion for study than women of other race/ethnicities. Selected cases have a full medical record review after which the CA-PAMR Advisory Committee, a committee within CMQCC chaired by Dr. Elliott Main and made up of medical and nursing leaders throughout California, reviews these cases. The CA-PAMR results and recommendations will be implemented through the quality improvement efforts of CMQCC as the project continues. In addition to CA-PAMR, the MCAH Program is developing other programs, such as the Local Maternal Care Quality Improvement pilot project, in collaboration with CMQCC. The MCAH Program will continue work to measure how these joint efforts result in improving the health of California’s mothers.
View Shabbir's CMQCC profile.
