Maternity ward closures are increasingly common. According to recent reporting by Vox, many of these closures are happening primarily in rural areas and predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.

For more on this, The Takeaway spoke with Alecia McGregor, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Politics at Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and Katy Backes Kozhimannil, professor at the University of Minnesota and director of the university’s Rural Health Program.