Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality Rates Need More Time to Improve

Feb 18, 2025

1 min

A Newsday story on racial disparities in maternal mortality rates in New York featured an interview with Dr. Martine Hackett, associate professor and chair of Hofstra’s Department of Population Health. While national statistics have improved overall in recent years, experts say it will take more time to close the gap.

National statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show overall maternal mortality across the U.S. dropped for the second year in a row. However, while the rate for white women, decreased from 19 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022 to 14.5 in 2023, it rose from 49.5 to 50.3 for Black women.

Dr. Hackett, cofounder of Birth Justice Warriors, called the disparity “shocking” and said, “When you’re looking to address a problem as big and complex as maternal mortality, it is going to take a long time.”

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Martine Hackett

Associate Professor of Population Health

Dr. Hackett's research focuses on public health and health inequities, particularly in the American suburbs and minority communities.

Public HealthHealth CommunicationResearch MethodsMaternal-Child HealthInfant Injury

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Feb 20, 2025

1 min

Pay Raises for LI Town Officials

Lawrence Levy, associate vice president and executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies, is featured in a Newsday article about pay raises for Long Island town officials. Among Long Island’s 13 towns, all but three gave raises to their town supervisors and council members, and all but two gave raises to their town clerks and tax receivers. Levy explained that many officials like the idea of telling voters each year that they aren’t getting a pay hike, but that means when they do enact a raise, the increase will be a big dollar amount, even if its average, over 10 years, is in line with cost-of-living increases. That big increase “looks awfully scary in a headline,” he said.

Feb 14, 2025

1 min

Legality, Next Steps for Canadian Tariffs

Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University Professor Julian Ku was quoted in The Globe and Mail article “The best hope for Canada in fighting a trade war with Trump may lie in U.S. courts." “Using IEEPA to impose tariffs has not been done before, so there has never been a court ruling on this question,” said Julian Ku, who studies the interaction of international law and U.S. constitutional law at Hofstra University. Mr. Trump has, however, argued that he is responding to external threats, citing the movement of fentanyl and illegal migrants to the U.S. from Canada, Mexico and China. That is likely to prove a potent defense, Prof. Ku said. “The court has also been deferential to the President on national-security matters, and the language of the statute is very broad, so it is far from clear which way the court would come down on this issue,” he said.