Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial disparities in postpartum visits at a Texas level IV maternal center.

Background: The primary aim of our study was to determine the attendance of postpartum visits stratified by race and if the COVID-19 pandemic affected racial disparities in postpartum visit attendance.

Methods: We searched our labor and delivery records from July 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 and from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 and included patients who delivered liveborn infants. The final analysis was restricted to patients who identified as White or Caucasian only, Black or African American only, or Hispanic. We then performed joint tests on the logistic regression with an interaction term of race and year of delivery to determine the final model.

Results: The odds ratio of Black or African American and Hispanic patients attending a postpartum visit was 0.589 (95% CI 0.456, 0.760; < .001) and 0.836 (95% CI 0.676, 1.034;  = 0.099), respectively, compared to White or Caucasian patients. The interaction term of race and year of delivery was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: Black or African American patients at our hospital had a clinically and statistically significant lower utilization of postpartum visits compared to White or Caucasian patients and this disparity was not exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.