COVID-19 in Pregnancy and Adverse Outcomes: Patterns and Racial/Ethnic Inequities

COVID-19 in Pregnancy and Adverse Outcomes: Patterns and Racial/Ethnic Inequities

Dr. Jelliffe-Pawloski and Dr. Deborah Karasek present their research on COVID and pregnancy, including some preliminary results from the HOPE COVID-19 study.

Speakers

Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski, PhD, MS

Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Director, Precision Health & Discovery
UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative
Primary Investigator, HOPE COVID-19
University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

Dr. Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski is a Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the UCSF School of Medicine and is the Director of Precision Health and Discovery with the UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative (pretermbirthca.ucsf.edu). She serves as the Primary Investigator for the HOPE COVID-19 study which examines the impact of COVID-19 and pandemic-related hardship on adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes (HOPE.UCSF.edu/covid_19). She is also a leader and founder of the HOPE Consortium (HOPE.UCSF.edu) which includes investigators from across the US and world whose work focuses on uncovering causes of adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes and identifying in-roads for interventions. Dr. Jelliffe-Pawlowski is also a Primary Investigator on the PROMPT study which looks at metabolic predictors of newborn maturity, mortality, and morbidity and includes US and global efforts focused on uncovering in-roads to predict outcomes and prevent sickness and disability. She has served as a state, national, and international adviser on committees and task forces focused on the early detection and prevention of preterm birth and developmental disabilities and holds patents for blood tests and algorithms predicting preterm birth.

Deborah Karasek, PhD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences
Researcher with the California Preterm Birth Initiative
University of California, San Francisco

Deborah Karasek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and researcher with the California Preterm Birth Initiative at UCSF. She is a social epidemiologist, with a PhD and MPH from UC Berkeley. Her work investigates how structural contexts shape health over the lifespan and how to target policy solutions to improve birth equity. She uses community-based participatory research methods and leverages multi-level data to inform interventions to reduce inequities. She is a Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) K12 scholar and receives funding from the March of Dimes and the California Preterm Birth Initiative. She serves as the Co-PI of the evaluation of the Abundant Birth Project (ABP), a novel pregnancy guaranteed income pilot program. She also leads work on the impacts of COVID-19 infections in pregnancy, with a focus on racial and socioeconomic inequities.

RSVP