In this April 9, 2019 photo, Dr. Megan Mahoney (center) examines patient Consuelo Castaneda (right) as medical records clerk Anu Tirapassulu documents the visit at the Stanford Family Medicine Office in Stanford, California. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Women’s health in the United States is in a “perilous state” as preventable deaths continue to rise, and no state is worse off than Mississippi, according to a new Commonwealth Fund state scorecard on women’s health and reproductive health.
The scorecard ranks all 50 states and Washington, D.C., based on their access to reproductive and comprehensive health care for women. Top ranking states include Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island.
“This is a stark reminder that where you live affects your health and healthcare,” Commonwealth Fund President Joseph Bentacourt said at a news conference.
The Magnolia State ranked last in the scorecard’s state rankings due to its high maternal mortality rate, high death rates from cervical and breast cancer, and its total ban on abortion.
Mississippi’s last abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, closed in 2022.
In 2018, the clinic and one of its doctors challenged a state law banning abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy, a case that eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which used it to overturn the landmark 1973 decision establishing the right to an abortion, Roe v. Wade.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, Mississippi and other states that make up the Mississippi Delta region have the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and a significant percentage of counties in the region do not have a single hospital or birth center staffed by obstetricians to provide obstetric care.
Mississippi’s maternal mortality rate is 44.6 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2020 and 2022, more than 1.5 times the national average of 26.3, according to the scorecard.
Southern states overall have the highest breast and cervical cancer death rates in the nation, and Mississippi has the second highest death rates among these states.
The analysis found that the death rate for women from breast and cervical cancer in Mississippi in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, about 7 percentage points higher than the national average.
Both breast and cervical cancer are treatable and, in some cases, preventable with timely screening and health care. The high death rates from these two cancers in the state may be partly related to low screening rates.
The analysis found that fewer women in Mississippi are getting regular mammograms, with just 73 percent of women ages 50 to 74 having a mammogram in the past two years, about 4 percentage points lower than the national average.
The analysis found that about 80% of Mississippi women ages 21 to 65 had a Pap smear in the past three years, 2 percentage points lower than the national average and 9 percentage points lower than the best-performing states.
About 14 percent of Mississippi women don’t have health insurance, 4 percentage points higher than the national average, according to the analysis.
The state also suffers from an extreme shortage of obstetric care workers, including doctors and certified midwives, with a rate of 60.4 per 100,000 women ages 15 to 44, about 18 percent lower than the national average.
