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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2007.114900v1 97/9/1541-a    most recent Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Tucker, M. J. Articles by Hsia, J. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Tucker, M. J. Articles by Hsia, J. Related Collections Pregnancy African Americans/Blacks Mortality Surveillance Women's Health

Myra J. Tucker, BSN, MPH, Cynthia J. Berg, MD, MPH, William M. Callaghan, MD, MPH and Jason Hsia, PhD

The authors are with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Myra J. Tucker, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Mailstop K-23, Atlanta, GA 30341 (e-mail: mjt2@cdc.gov).

	Because this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

We appreciate Holtzman’s interest in our efforts to gain insight into the reasons for racial disparities in maternal mortality. The persistent 3- to 4-times greater risk of pregnancy-related mortality for Black women is the largest gap among the traditional indicators of maternal and infant health in the United States. We, too, are concerned that racial disparities also exist for infant outcomes and that they, like those for pregnancy-related mortality, remain largely unexplained.

The role of stress, neuroendocrine pathways, and immune system functions are all areas of biomedical research that we hope will help us to better understand why some groups . . . [Full Text]