The Bronx holds a grim distinction in New York City. It has the highest maternal mortality rate of any borough, and the numbers behind that ranking tell a story about race, access, and a pregnancy complication that does not get nearly enough public attention.
Preeclampsia affects roughly 1 in 25 pregnancies in the United States. It typically develops after the 20th week of pregnancy and is defined by a dangerous spike in blood pressure that can threaten the lives of both mother and child. Black women are 60% more likely to develop the condition than white women, and in New York City, Black women are 5.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. In the Bronx, those disparities are even more pronounced.
A new campaign launching May 18 is trying to change that, one bus shelter at a time.
The campaign targeting preeclampsia in the Bronx
The Bronx Healthy Start Partnership and March of Dimes are jointly launching a public awareness campaign called Low Dose, Big Benefits. The campaign will run across MTA Bronx buses, bus shelters, and LinkNYC kiosks throughout the borough, putting preeclampsia prevention information directly in front of the women most at risk.
The central message is straightforward. Taking a daily low-dose aspirin of 81mg between 12 and 28 weeks of pregnancy has been shown to reduce the risk of preeclampsia by 24%, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. That is a meaningful risk reduction from an inexpensive, widely available medication. The campaign’s goal is to make sure women in the Bronx know that option exists and that their doctors are recommending it.
The organizers are also planning presentations at local community establishments to connect Bronx women with prenatal care providers and resources for cardiovascular health after delivery. The campaign is designed to reach women before complications arise, not after.
Why preeclampsia does not end at delivery
One of the less understood dimensions of preeclampsia is what it does to a woman’s body long after she leaves the hospital. Dr. Anna Bortnick, co-director of the MFM-Cardiology Joint Program at Montefiore Einstein, treats women in the Bronx who are living with those consequences. She has spoken publicly about seeing the cardiovascular toll of preeclampsia play out in her clinical practice week after week. The condition’s risks to the heart and circulatory system do not resolve at birth. They follow women for years, sometimes decades.
That long-term dimension is part of what makes early prevention so important. A complication that increases a woman’s lifetime cardiovascular risk is not simply an obstetric problem. It is a chronic health issue that the medical system has historically underprioritized, particularly for Black women.
The broader maternal health crisis in New York City
The disparities driving this campaign are not unique to the Bronx, but they are concentrated there in ways that make the borough a focal point for maternal health advocates. Across New York City, Black women and other women of color face compounding barriers to prenatal care, including insurance gaps, geographic distance from quality providers, and systemic inequities in how their symptoms are taken seriously by the health care system.
The Low Dose, Big Benefits campaign does not solve all of that. What it does is put specific, actionable information into public spaces where women will actually encounter it. A bus shelter ad that explains the connection between low-dose aspirin and preeclampsia prevention may reach a pregnant woman who has never had that conversation with a doctor.
Christeen Francis, head of campaign leadership at Bronx Healthy Start, has described preeclampsia as a preventable tragedy. The framing matters. Preventable tragedies require prevention, and prevention requires that people know what to do before something goes wrong. This campaign is built on that premise, and it arrives at a moment when the Bronx’s maternal mortality numbers make the stakes impossible to ignore.
