The numbers are stark. Women in Georgia are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy than the national rate, and Black women in the state are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. This issue was the basis of conversation at an event held at the Emory Conference Center Hotel on Wednesday.

The inaugural Symposium to Address the Maternal Health Crisis in Georgia—hosted by Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Mercer University School of Medicine, and Research!America—brought together stakeholders from across health care, state and federal governments, community partners, and advocacy groups to collaboratively identify opportunities to improve maternal and newborn health in Georgia.

“We understand that with this crisis, we are not dealing with statistics. We are dealing with mothers, daughters, sisters, and the very core of what makes Georgians, Georgians—families, who are affected by this crisis,” says Ravi I. Thadhani, MD, MPH, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University, who served as they symposium’s emcee.

“There is work already being done by superb investigators, institutions and programs across the state and we’re sadly still not making a major dent on this problem at the population level,” Thadhani adds. “Therefore, we need to start doing something different. And what can we be doing different? We can tackle this problem together and in much more creative and innovative ways.”

More than 250 people attended the symposium, which featured a keynote address by Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey, MD, a presentation on case studies in preeclampsia by Holger Stepan, MD, chair of the Department of Obstetrics at the University of Leipzig in Germany, and a panel discussion on pathways toward possible solutions to the maternal health crisis in Georgia.