Kacie Blackman, PhD
May 7, 2021
HERE Center Researcher and Health Science Department鈥檚 Assistant Professor 91传媒
As an advocate fighting against infant and maternal mortality, particularly among black populations, Kacie Blackman has dedicated most of her research to lactation resources, policies for maternal health and maternity support resources.
鈥淲e鈥檙e fortunate to live in America, [but] we spend so much on healthcare, and it鈥檚 just ridiculous how much people are dying [and lack] access to affordable quality care,鈥 Blackman said. Blackman received her bachelor鈥檚 degree in Human Performance, with a minor in Chemistry, from Howard University. She also received her doctorate degree in Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise from Virginia Tech.
Currently, Blackman is one of the faculty cluster hires at the Health Equity Research and Education (HERE) Center and is an assistant professor in health sciences at California State University, Northridge.
Blackman also serves as principal investigator for the HOMME Lab, or the Health Opportunities Mobile Health in Mamas and Equity. According to their website, the lab researches the socio-ecological framework that influences a mother鈥檚 perceptions and roles on breastfeeding, at the individual, relationship, community and policy level including examining ways to reduce infant feeding disparities.
Most of her research focuses on maternal health and access to maternal health resources. 鈥淲e looked at how the social ecological model influences lactation for the actual individual and their baby,鈥 Blackman said.
From the policy level, Blackman looked at on-campus lactation protections for students, faculty and staff across California. She found that there were only policies for on-campus employees and not for the students.
鈥淸It] is critical to be able to have policies and protections for students, primarily for parenting students, because they shouldn鈥檛 have to make a choice between whether they鈥檙e going to breastfeed their child or finish academics,鈥 Blackman said. 鈥淭hey should be able to do both.鈥 Another project Blackman worked on was comparing lactation resources between black populations and white populations. To do this, she observed stores from predominantly black zip codes and predominantly white zip codes.
鈥淲hat we found was that black stores had very minimal of anything in terms of formula, feeding or even lactation support resources,鈥 she said. 鈥淏y that, I mean vitamins and teas that can help you with milk production.鈥
According to Blackman, evaluating breastfeeding resources is important because it shows how people would be able to follow the breastfeeding guidelines given by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
鈥淭hey recommend that you breastfeed exclusively for six months and then up to one year, and then WHO, which is the World Health Organization, recommends that you breastfeed exclusively for six months and then up to two years,鈥 she said. 鈥淲ith these recommendations, it鈥檚 [difficult] to see how realistically someone would be able to follow these without being provided the proper resources.鈥
Her other projects include an augmented reality application to motivate mothers to breastfeed and a project looking at how racism plays a role on physiological stress through analyzing black doulas鈥 and white doulas鈥 saliva samples.
鈥淲e really need to see that [black doulas] may be a vulnerable population,鈥 Blackman said. 鈥淚f [the doulas] are not well, then we could potentially see negative birthing outcomes, so we would need to make sure that the birth equity workers, in this case, doulas, are doing well.鈥
According to Blackman, her experience with the HERE Center has been positive amazing. When she first got to CSUN, she started out as a cluster hire at the center, and she was able to witness and be a part of the center鈥檚 development.
鈥淚t was really cool being able to help with the bylaws and the constitution and all [the] things that go into creating a center that I wouldn鈥檛 [normally] have had an opportunity to do, especially as a new hire,鈥 Blackman said. 鈥淸The HERE Center] has been a great resource, and I鈥檓 excited for the different opportunities that the HERE Center has going.鈥
Former Article Author:
Alicia Gabrielle Puzon
Communications Coordinator