Women's eNews Receives $3,000 Fund for Investigative Journalism Grant for Black Maternal Health

New York, NY, January 29, 2011 --(PR.com)-- The grant will provide funds and additional resources for Women’s eNews to access and unpack core fatality statistics from the city's records on causes of maternal death in African American women.

Brant Houston, president of the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism stated his support: "This is a critical topic that deserves deep scrutiny and we were pleased to see Women's eNews pursuing the story and to be able to support the project."

Women’s eNews will use the reports gathered from this data to further illustrate their three-year reporting project on Black Maternal Health funded by the Kellogg Foundation. You can read a collection of previously published articles on Women's eNews' Black Maternal Health Page.

In 2008, black women in New York City experienced 79 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births compared to 10 white maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, and a national rate of 13 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the latest data available. The rate of maternal deaths among black women in New York City has increased annually since 2004, when the city reached a low of 44 black maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. That's all according to vital statistics released by the city in January 2010.

The Women’s eNews team believes the New York data might have national implications that could influence maternal care throughout the nation, particularly women of color. Women's eNews deeply believes it is the job of the news desk to raise questions and gather expert evaluations of the data—and to tell the story in human terms.

The Black Maternal Health series has formed a new distribution partnership with the Trice Edney Newswire which provides nationally focused and Black-oriented news stories, investigative reports, and opinion columns to more than 1,000 newspapers, radio stations and websites around the U.S.A., all of which are either Black-owned, serve vast Black audiences or are specifically interested in Black-oriented content.

Women’s eNews has writers and readers around the globe and an audience stretching from New York City to New Delhi and all points in between. The Web site has over 60,000 active users and the daily news reaches over 4 million readers a year online.

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