Six of our MPH students attended the 2020 CityMatCH Maternal and Child Health Leadership Conference, held September 16-18, online. What follows is a post from one of these attendees.
Anastasia Woods BA
This year I had the privilege to attend the City MatCH conference. Given the current COVID restrictions, the conference was hosted virtually via live stream sessions and Zoom networking workshops. Attending my first virtual conference came with its own set of challenges from navigating WiFi instabilities to dealing with the platform crashes that resulted from an overloaded system. My first day of the conference was difficult since I was constantly in and out of sessions, which made it difficult to truly grasp the sessions’ content. However, a major perk to City MatCH being virtual was having access to all the recorded sessions to enjoy in my own time. In addition, I enjoyed engaging with others via the chat box during sessions. Seeing the loving feedback and affirmative comments that aligned with my live reactions provide a pleasant sense of community. The chatbox function truly allowed the attendees to connect in a way that normally could not occur in an in-person conference because all the comments were public, so I appreciated the opportunity to be a thought partner with others.
I deeply enjoyed how this conference directly and consistently focused on structural racism within MCH and public health as the source of health inequalities that must be intentionally addressed within health equity efforts. The conference opened with a divine prayer and welcoming message from the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, which was my highlight from the first day of the conference. I appreciated how Ms. Octa Keen spoke about the history of how white oppressors sold the land from her tribe and the long-term impacts of that oppression. Ms. Keen’s prayer offers hope for racial and ethnic equity and the dismantling of systematic racism within the evolution of public health.
I also attended the “Addressing Racism in Maternal and Child Health through a Reproductive Justice Framework” session, which featured Dr. Joia Perry, Nicolle Gonzales, CNM, and Dr. Rachel Hardeman. This talk was my absolute favorite and directly spoke to the importance of applying the Reproductive Justice Framework in every aspect of public health from direct healthcare services to research. Dr. Perry made an excellent point about how the traditional approach of addressing health issues takes the agency from communities’ of color ability to manage and improve their own health outcomes. I agree that the lived experiences of people of color must be validated, centered, and used to guide our racial equity endeavors. Attending the sessions at City MatCH further affirmed my passion for public health and commitment to improving MCH outcomes.
Anastasia Woods BA is a first-year MPH student, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She plans to graduate in May 2021. Her interests include the racial disparity in maternal mortality, doula-centered care, and the midwifery model of care. She enjoys traveling, learning new things through intellectual conversations, and yoga.
