Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-05-27T17:17:43.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“The Last Piece of the Puzzle that Makes all the Difference in the World:” Team-Facing Medical-Legal Partnership for Reproductive Care Teams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2024

Griffin Jones
Affiliation:
COLLECTIVELY DETERMINED, ARLINGTON, MA, USA
Latisha Goulland
Affiliation:
INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND RECOVERY, CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA

Abstract

As reproductive freedoms in the U.S. undergo significant rollbacks, vital reproductive health services — and the care teams delivering them — face escalating legal threats and complexity. This qualitative case-control community-based participatory research study describes how legal problem-solving supports for reproductive care teams serving mothers with opioid use disorder are protective for both patients and care team members. We describe how medical legal partnerships (MLPs) can promote Reproductive Justice and argue for wider adoption of care-team facing legal supports.

Type
Symposium Articles
Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s)

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

McNeely, I. F., “Medicine on a Grand Scale”: Rudolf Virchow, Liberalism, and the Public Health (London: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, 2002): at 25.Google Scholar
Tobin-Tyler, E., Poverty, Health and Law: Readings and Cases for Medical-Legal Partnership (Durham, N.C: Carolina Academic Press, 2011): available at < https://cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781594607790/Poverty-Health-and-Law>.Google Scholar
Adapted in part from Griffin Jones, “JUSTICE(IN)HEALTH: HEALTH(IN)JUSTICE: A Participatory Assessment of the Value Proposition of Medical-Legal Partnership for Mothers with Opioid Use Disorder” (DrPH thesis, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2022), available at <https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37371434> (last visited December 1, 2023).+(last+visited+December+1,+2023).>Google Scholar
Flavin, J. and Paltrow, L. M., “Punishing Pregnant Drug-Using Women: Defying Law, Medicine, and Common Sense,” Journal of Addictive Diseases 29, no. 2 (2010): 231–44, <https://doi.org/10.1080/10550881003684830>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Work, E. C. et al., “Prescribed and Penalized: The Detrimental Impact of Mandated Reporting for Prenatal Utilization of Medication for Opioid Use Disorder,” Maternal and Child Health Journal (2023): 19, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-023-03672-x>.Google ScholarPubMed
Goodman, D. J., Saunders, E. C., and Wolff, K. B., “In Their Own Words: A Qualitative Study of Factors Promoting Resilience and Recovery among Postpartum Women with Opioid Use Disorders,” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 20 (2020): 178, <https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-020-02872-5>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, Massachusetts DCF: 2022 Annual Report, (Boston: MA Department of Children and Families, December 2023), available at < www.mass.gov/doc/fy-2022/download> (last visited July 28, 2023).+(last+visited+July+28,+2023).>Google Scholar
Harp, K. L. H. and Oser, C. B., “A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Child Custody Loss on Drug Use and Crime among a Sample of African American Mothers,” Child Abuse & Neglect 77 (2018): 112, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2017.12.017>; L. Mackay et al., “Rooming-in and Loss of Child Custody: Key Factors in Maternal Overdose Risk,” Addiction 115, no. 9 (2020): 1786–87, <https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15028>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thumath, M. et al., “Overdose Among Mothers: The Association between Child Removal and Unintentional Drug Overdose in a Longitudinal Cohort of Marginalized Women in Canada,” International Journal of Drug Policy 91 (2021): 102977, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102977>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn Community Health Center, Moms Do Care, available at <https://www.lynnchc.org/moms-do-care> (last visited Jun. 18, 2023).+(last+visited+Jun.+18,+2023).>Google Scholar
The Moms Do Care Program eligibility criteria limits eligibility to “women.” Because not all birthing people are women, this article will use the term “birthing people” when generalizing outside of the study population.Google Scholar
Institute for Health and Recovery, “Moms Do Care,” available at <https://www.healthrecovery.org/page/moms-do-care> (last visited Jun. 18, 2023).+(last+visited+Jun.+18,+2023).>Google Scholar
Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, Maternal and Infant-Focused Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Investment Program: Evaluation Report (Boston: Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, 2021), available at <https://www.mass.gov/doc/maternal-and-infant-focused-neonatal-abstinence-syndrome-investment-program-evaluation-report/download> (last visited June 26, 2023).+(last+visited+June+26,+2023).>Google Scholar
Massachusetts Department of Public Health, An Assessment of Fatal and Nonfatal Opioid Overdoses in Massachusetts (2011-2015) (Boston: Massachusetts Department of Public Health, 2017), available at <https://www.mass.gov/doc/legislative-report-chapter-55-opioid-overdose-study-august-2017/download> (last visited December 1, 2023).+(last+visited+December+1,+2023).>Google Scholar
See Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, supra note 13.Google Scholar
Schiff, D. M. et al., “Assessment of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Medication to Treat Opioid Use Disorder Among Pregnant Women in Massachusetts,” JAMA Network Open 3, no. 5 (2020): e205734, <https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.5734>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goffman, E., Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Social Theory (New York: J. Aronson, 1974): at 33.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. et al., “Intersectional Structural Vulnerability to Abusive Policing among People Who Inject Drugs: A Mixed Methods Assessment in California’s Central Valley,” The International Journal on Drug Policy 87 (2021): 102981, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102981>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goode, E. and Ben-Yehuda, N., “Moral Panics: Culture, Politics, and Social Construction,” Annual Review of Sociology 20 (1994): 149–71, available at <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2083363> (last visited December 1, 2023).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsai, A. C. et al., “Stigma as a Fundamental Hindrance to the United States Opioid Overdose Crisis Response,” PLOS Medicine 16, no. 11 (2019): e1002969, <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002969>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angelotta, C. et al., “A Moral or Medical Problem? The Relationship between Legal Penalties and Treatment Practices for Opioid Use Disorders in Pregnant Women,” Women’s Health Issues 26, no. 6 (2016): 595601, <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2016.09.002>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Faherty, L. J. et al., “Association between Punitive Policies and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome among Medicaid-Insured Infants in Complex Policy Environments,” Addiction 117, no. 1 (2021): 162171, doi.org/10.1111/add.15602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ross, L., Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2017): at 65.Google Scholar
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Reproductive Justice, available at <https://sistersong.net/reproductive-justice> (last visited Jun. 18, 2023).+(last+visited+Jun.+18,+2023).>Google Scholar
Ziegler, M., “Disobedience, Medicine, and the Rule of Law: Response to: Medical Disobedience by Dov Fox,” Harvard Law Review 136, no. 5 (2023): 319338, available at <https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-136/disobedience-medicine-and-the-rule-of-law/> (last visited December 1, 2023).Google Scholar
Shelton, R. C., Philbin, M. M., and Ramanadhan, S., “Qualitative Research Methods in Chronic Disease: Introduction and Opportunities to Promote Health Equity,” Annual Review of Public Health 43 (2022): 3757, <https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-012420-105104>.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
This study received Human Subjects Research exemption from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Office of Regulatory Affairs and Research Compliance Institutional Review Board.Google Scholar
I.e., 42 C.F.R. Part 2; Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records, 82 Fed. Reg. 6052 (Jan. 18, 2017)Google Scholar
See Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, supra note 7.Google Scholar
Slosar, M., 2022 Justice Gap Report, Legal Services Corporation, available at <https://lsc-live.app.box.com/s/xl2v2uraiotbbzrhuwtjlgi0emp3myz1> (last accessed Jun. 18, 2023).+(last+accessed+Jun.+18,+2023).>Google Scholar
Morton, S. et al., Commentary, “Social Care Matters: Do Teams Have What They Need to Succeed?Rhode Island Medical Journal 104, no. 4 (2021): 810, <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33926150/>.Google ScholarPubMed
Reinhardt, E., “Opinion | Doctors Aren’t Burned Out from Overwork. We’re Demoralized by Our Health System,” New York Times, February 5, 2023, available at <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/opinion/doctors-universal-health-care.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare> (last visited December 1, 2023); E. E. Sullivan et al., “Primary Care in Peril: How Clinicians View the Problems and Solutions,” New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery 4, no. 6 (2023), <https://doi.org/10.1056/CAT.23.0029>.Google Scholar