As the United States experiences mass racial unrest and nationwide protests, equity issues have become elevated in the American consciousness. And according to Erin McHenry-Sorber, an associate professor of higher education in the West Virginia University College of Education and Human Services, this reckoning with racial and economic inequity isn’t just happening in urban areas. 

Black infants die at almost twice the rate of white infants in West Virginia, a statistic nursed by racism and other adverse circumstances not only in the state, but across the nation. West Virginia University School of Public Health professor Lauri Andress is studying how chronic stress from living with racism and discrimination can lead to poorer health outcomes for Black mothers and their babies.