The United States has a two-tiered system of reproductive health care. As a result, reproductive health indicators reveal enormous disparities between groups. The maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births is 6.7 for Caucasians, 8.2 for Native Americans, and 21.5 for African Americans. The risk of ectopic pregnancy, one of the leading causes of maternal death in the United States, is 1.6 times greater for women of color than for white women. The mortality rate of Native American women with cervical cancer is more than twice the mortality rate of white women with the disease.
Women of color are less likely than white women to receive necessary gynecological care.
For example, Native American women are the least likely to visit a gynecologist regularly while Asian American women are the least likely to have ever received a pap smear. The neonatal mortality rate among Native American infants, like that of African American infants, is nearly twice that of white infants. Washington D.C., a predominately African-American district, has a higher infant mortality rate than any of the 50 states in the United States. In fact, in some low-income areas, STD rates approach those found in many Southern countries. More than 4,500 women die annually of cervical cancer, which is strongly associated with several strains of human papilloma virus.