Two public health undergraduates named finalists in Tulane Health Policy Case Competition
Abigail Wan and Hana Adan, two undergraduates in San Diego State University’s School of Public Health, were named finalists in the Tulane Health Policy Case Competition for their project “Bridging the Maternal Gap in the Bayou.”
The project looks at maternal health disparities in Louisiana’s rural parishes, or counties, where factors like race and geography can have potentially deadly consequences for mothers. Focusing on issues within the current healthcare structure, Wan and Adan sought to make care more accessible in the state.
“Maternal health reflects whether a healthcare system values women, families, and equity,” Wan said. “That makes it urgent and worth solving.”
In their research, Wan and Adan found that 44 of the 64 Louisiana parishes are maternal care deserts where hospital closures, provider shortages, and transportation barriers “create a cycle of delayed or inaccessible care,” Wan said.
They also found racial disparity to be heavily at play. While black mothers account for 37% of births in the state, they make up 62% of pregnancy-related deaths.
Through “immediate care delivery innovation,” Wan and Adan created a plan to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality within five years.
They designed the Louisiana Maternal Health Corps, a system incorporating mobile maternity pods, local perinatal navigators, and a virtual specialty hub powered by telehealth to simplify health care access, close racial disparities, and creates a “financially sustainable model that can pay for itself through Medicaid reimbursement and avoided emergency costs.”
In other words, their system helps bring healthcare to mothers in Louisiana, rather than relying on mothers to access care that may be out of reach. If successful, their system has the potential to impact maternal healthcare nationwide, Wan said.
“One thing we learned through this project is that rural healthcare innovation doesn’t require reinventing medicine,” Wan said. “It just requires rethinking delivery.”
The project’s success was due, in part, to Wan and Adan’s ability to challenge each other throughout the process. Ensuring their plans and costs were feasible gave the project more weight in the end.
“Our teamwork succeeded because we approached this as public health practitioners, with the knowledge we gained as students at SDSU, combining data, policy, implementation, and ethics into one cohesive system,” Wan said.
They also credit School of Public Health professors Kenneth Calvert and Amanda Miller, as well as public affairs professor Megan Welsh Carroll, for helping prepare them for their project presentation.
“[Being named a finalist] signals that maternal health equity is being taken seriously at decision-making levels,” Wan said. “It means our work was evaluated not just as an academic exercise, but as a viable policy proposal.”
Recognition from the competition also supports Wan and Adan as public health practitioners, adding credibility to their skills as they move forward with their careers.
