Calif. Advocates Shine Light on Pregnancy-Related Deaths Among Black Women

Charlene Muhammad | California Black Media

Commentary: ChatGPT, Software Created in Calif Lab, to Change Way We Learn and Live...continued

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of Black maternal health in the United States as “medical apartheid.”

During their discussion, the panelists amplified the main themes of Birthing Justice as they made the case that encouragement, resources, and support are necessary, along with improved medical care, to transform the maternal care system.

Dr. LaTanya Hines, an OB/ GYN and member of the Association of Black Women’s Physicians (ABWP) said she was an unapologetic and proud advocate for Black women.

“Nobody should die in pregnancy,” she said.

A spokesperson for OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, said the company “made ChatGPT available as a research preview to learn from real-world use, which we believe is a critical part of developing and deploying capable, safe AI systems.”

The technology in ChatGPT’s large language model, GPT 3.5 uses data from the internet to predict the best possible response to a query. It can piece together vast chunks of data to create a response that is not a repetition from a singular site or source, but rather fragments from the whole dataset which, together, make a unique answer –a critical difference from a search engine’s function.

(Courtesy Photo Black Women for Wellness)

Birthing Justice film screening with community partners and advocates (l-r) Pastor Thembekila Smart (SCLC), Adjoa Jones (Outreach & Engagement African American Infant/ Maternal Mortality Prevention Initiative, Debbie Allen (Tribe Midwifery), Leigh Purry (Blue Shield), Khefri Riley (Frontline Doulas), Dr. LaTanya Hines (Association of Black Women’s Physicians), Gloria Davis (Girls Club of Los Angeles), Denise Pines (Executive Producer), Gabrielle Brown (Black Women for Wellness) legislatures, policy makers, with healthcare institutions, the lived experience of people who are coming into the screenings so they actually have the real data, and we can use that to make the case for some of the actions we want to see happen,” she said.

April Valentine, 31, planned to celebrate her new birth with family and friends, but instead her loved ones found themselves in front of Centinela Hospital in Inglewood on Jan. 28, protesting her death.

Valentine’s family alleges that she complained about leg pain for hours during the birth of her child on Jan.10, but was ignored and neglected by her caretakers at the medical center that specializes in maternal care.

Valentine, pregnant with her first child, died that day.

Her plight is only one episode, advocates say, in what is an escalating crisis affecting Black women during pregnancy throughout California and across the country

Recently, a group of advocates collaborated to bring awareness to the Black maternal and infant health crisis with a free screening of the film "Birthing Justice: Every Woman Deserves A Beautiful Birth Story” at The Miracle Theater in Inglewood. A panel discussion complemented the feature-length documentary.

Birthing Justice covers the issues underpinning – and helping to fuel -- the maternal health crisis within the African American community and articulates best practices to enhance birthing equity for all women, especially Black women. The audience completed a preliminary survey online prior to viewing the film, and later filled out a post survey online.

Denise Pines, the executive producer of Birthing Justice and co-founder of Women In The Room Productions, talked about the “the goal of this survey.”

“We probably will end up having a hundred screenings, and we want to share with

The event was sponsored by African American Infant/ Maternal Mortality (AAIMM), Girls Club-Los Angeles, Southern Christian Leadership (SCLC)-Southern California, Charles Drew University, Black Maternal Health Center of Excellence, Children’s Institute, and Black Women for Wellness (BWW).

Pines recommended supporting and volunteering with the organizations that do the much-needed work to address pregnancy-related deaths of Black mothers and babies and to get better outcomes overall.

The filmmakers explored what they are calling a “national epidemic” in four regions: Washington, D.C., Augusta, GA, and several areas in Missouri, and California. They interviewed women affected by current policies -- birthing moms and healthcare professionals, as well as birthing advocates, activists and policy makers at the forefront of advancing policy change.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women were three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women. Multiple factors contributed to these disparities, such as variation in quality healthcare, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit biases.

Birthing Justice strongly noted that the high mortality rates among Black women are

Letter to the Editor (David Tucker experience with Health Care)

Senior resident of Rancho Cucamonga and president of the VIP Seniors Club at the Rancho Cucamonga Senior Center regarding his experience and call for attention regarding Medicare Advantage coverage.

Dear Editor,

Coming out of the pandemic, healthy habits and prioritizing care are front mind for the retired population more than ever before.

I am thankful that my Medicare Advantage plan gives me the care I need to properly address my health issues and prevent further problems. Since I am blind in one eye, it is very important I have quality vision insurance. My plan gives me great coverage for my eye treatments, prescription medications, and screenings all at a minimal cost. Not only does my Medicare Advantage plan give me the vision coverage I need, but they integrate hearing and dental coverage into it as well. That way, I get all the not due to their genetic makeup, what they ate, how they behaved, nor any bad habits placed them in this situation. When compared to poor White women with less education, Black women had worse death rates. Black women are unable to buy or educate themselves out of being a statistic when it comes to pregnancyrelated deaths. The cause is not race, but racism.

Women In The Room Productions has partnered with the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC), one of the leading policy organizations in the country, to support legislation and public education they believe will make a difference. One such policy change is the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, which is comprised of 12 i bills addressing various dimensions of the Black maternal health crisis.

One of the bill’s sponsors, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL14) appeared in the film.

Pastor Thembekila Smart, Executive Director, Women of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Southern California Chapter moderated the fourperson panel in Inglewood and kicked off the discussion with her own birthing stories, ranging from an emergency c-section with her second child during which the doctor asked her husband ‘if one must be saved, who would it be: his wife or his son? Her third birth was in her 24th week and her son was hardly one pound. Both babies survived and are now thriving young men, Smart shared.

“We did not have any idea that our birthing experience would go this way,” said' Smart, who described the current state

Dr. Hines addressed the importance of OB/GYN care, stressing the need to start conversations with patients from their first visit about planning their pregnancies. She said their vital statistics are also critical -- making sure that their blood pressure, blood sugar and weight were well controlled before they got pregnant so that their birthing experience is healthy and safe.

“I am going to work with you, and we will have a shared decision-making plan,” Hines emphasized. “The goal of giving more to your patients because they need more, and if we happen to give little more than what they need, it’s okay.”

Debbie Allen, Founder of Tribe Midwifery, said women should not assume that medical establishments will give them the care they are supposed to receive.

“Demand it,” she said. “There are so many layers as to why we get the care that we get, but until those things change, we have to take responsibility to make sure we get the care we deserve,” Allen advised. Allen said women should ask questions, involve their partners, and treat childbirth like planning a wedding.

Leigh Purry is Senior Manager of Community Health, Blue Shield of California’s Health Transformation Lab.

“This film will shine light on the critical issue of saving lives and this film will help ensure that every pregnant and birthing person's voice is heard,” said Purry.

“This film will help ensure that people have access and receive all the support they need to feel safe and cared for. Racism exists and it exists in healthcare,” she added.

For more information about the movement to ensure Birthing Justice for Black mothers and their families, and to find a film screening in your area, visit BirthingJustice.com.

Commentary: ChatGPT, Software Created in Calif Lab, to Change Way We Learn and Live

Maxim Elramsisy | California Black Media

So, a romantically inclined individual, for example, looking for a unique way to show affection to a love interest could instruct ChatGPT to “make a list of some one-of-a-kind Valentine’s Day gifts.” A search engine would return an index of links to websites with words matching that query, along with sponsored results/advertisements. ChatGPT, on the other hand, would reply with a list of gifts that, together, would represent, statistically, the most likely gifts to appear in your search. This method of AI-assisted brainstorming is one of the greatest strengths of ChatGPT.

With some very specific instructions, the software application could also write a Valentine's Day song, heartfelt letter or poem for our lovestruck friend. The program's ability to generate original text could be useful here. The lyrics or poetry it spits out will not be plagiarized. The program can write jingles for advertisements, cover letters for prospective employees, or scripts for cold calls. It can write a story in Shakespearian prose, or it can take paragraphs from a college physiology textbook and explain it at a 4th grade level. Although the potential for this technology is mindblowing, it has some very distinct and important drawbacks especially at a time when the proliferation of disinformation and misinformation has become a pressing national concern. For one, as a predictive text generator, it is not very good at math. As of now, it cannot correctly answer some simple questions and it can generate some blatantly false information and convey it with confidence. Since the text is generated by AI itself, there is no source material to which the intelligence it gathers can be attributed.

According to the Frequently asked questions page, “ChatGPT will occasionally make up facts or “hallucinate” outputs. If you find an answer is unrelated, please provide that feedback by using the ‘Thumbs Down’ button.”

If the data that trains the AI is biased or not representative, then its results will have many of the same biases.

The machine learning algorithms in ChatGPT allow it to learn, expanding its data with each successive use. It makes sense, then, that OpenAI

Covered California Provides New Opportunities for People to Sign Up for Health Insurance Through Special Enrollment

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

Covered California is reminding Californians that they still have an opportunity to sign up for quality health insurance and get financial help to lower the cost of their monthly premiums even though open enrollment ended on Jan. 31. Every year, Covered California allows people who have experienced a significant life event to sign up for coverage during special enrollment.

“Californians can still protect themselves and their families with quality health insurance for the rest of the year, if they have had a major change in their lives,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California.

“If you have recently lost your coverage, gotten married, had a baby, or have been affected by California’s winter storms, visit CoveredCA.com to check out what plans are available to you.”

Special-Enrollment Period for California’s Winter Storms they can still get financial help to make it easier to afford a quality health insurance plan,” Altman said. “Californians come together when disaster strikes, and one way we can help our friends and neighbors is by making sure they have the access to the care that they need.”

Additional Qualifying Life Events

Covered California also released a new television ad, entitled “Life Takes a Turn,” to illustrate some of the most common reasons that someone would be eligible for special enrollment, such as losing health coverage, getting married, having a baby, permanently moving to California, or moving within California.

In addition, there are qualifying life events that are available due to the public health emergency and the Inflation Reduction Act: preventative measures I need to ensure I am not unaware of any surprise ailments. On top of all of that, for my busy weeks running the VIP Club at the senior center, I have utilized the prescription covered through my Medicare Advantage plan. It’s convenient and easy –and so beneficial to those who cannot drive!

I hope California’s lawmakers continue to support this program in 2023, so that seniors like me can keep their health care that is quality and affordable.

Sincerely,

David Tucker - President of the VIP Seniors Club

that use data to predict -- as you’ve more than likely seen in your Google search bar -- the next characters you will type.

In response to the recent historic winter storms in California and the state of emergency declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Covered California created a new qualifying life event for those who were affected. Californians have 60 days from the date the state of emergency was declared — or through March 5, 2023 — to sign up for coverage.

In December, OpenAI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence (AI) research lab, released a free, publicly available version of their AI-based bot called ChatGPT. The “GPT” stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer.

Transformers are programs, originally invented by Google,

Since the summer of 2021, a series of new AI-based products have exponentially advanced internet technology. Applications like Lensa takes pictures uploaded by a user, extracts (or learns) information about the person’s appearance, then creates its own images of the person.

AI music generators like Amper Music work in a similar way, learning from available music databases then creating

Consumers who sign up will benefit from the lower costs now available due to the increased and expanded financial help provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Right now, more than nine out of every 10 Covered California enrollees qualify for financial help because of the expanded and increased subsidies, and more than two-thirds of consumers are able to get comprehensive coverage for less than $10 a month.

“The storms disrupted the lives of thousands of people across the state, and we want to make sure that those affected know that

· You or a family member have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

· You have a household income under 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which is less than $20,385 for an individual and $41,625 for a family of four. Eligible consumers in this income bracket would qualify for a Silver 94 plan, the best coverage available through Covered California, at no cost.

A full list of qualifying life events can be found here: https:// www.coveredca.com/specialenrollment/

Consumers can apply for a health plan, or make changes to their current plan, if they have experienced one of these qualifying life events, usually within the last 60 days.

For more information about Covered California, please visit www.CoveredCA.com.