(Louisiana Illuminator) — In 2023, Louisiana had the highest maternal mortality rate in the nation: 41.9 deaths per 100,000 live births — more than double the national average. Louisiana also ranks worst in the nation on the U.S. Status of Women Index, which measures women’s economic participation, health, and political inclusion.
And the 2025 Louisiana Violence Experiences Survey (LaVEX) shows that one in four women in our state has experienced potentially lethal forms of domestic violence, including the use of a gun or knife, burning, or choking or suffocation, a notably higher prevalence than that seen in neighboring Texas.
These numbers are not abstract. They indicate that women in Louisiana face measurable disadvantages that require a coordinated response.
If higher education is to serve the public good, then universities have a responsibility to help improve the measurable conditions of the states in which they reside. Universities are nonprofit civic institutions sustained by public trust. Their teaching, research, and training should return measurable benefit to the communities and states that support them.
In Louisiana, that means helping to generate, track and ultimately improve these numbers.
Women’s health, safety and economic stability are not narrow concerns. They shape workforce participation, family well-being and long-term economic resilience. When maternal mortality is high, when severe domestic violence remains prevalent, when women face barriers to opportunity, the consequences ripple outward.
Employers lose workers. Health systems absorb preventable costs. Children experience instability. Communities lose capacity.
Women’s success is Louisiana’s success.
Today, women enroll in higher education at high rates in Louisiana and nationally. Yet despite these educational gains, Louisiana continues to rank last in women’s well-being. That gap — between educational access and lived outcomes — demands attention. Higher education must move beyond access to measurable impact.
Universities train the health and social service providers needed to improve conditions. They also generate trusted, independent, population-level data that allow communities and governments to understand challenges honestly.
Improving maternal health outcomes, reducing violence against women and girls, and strengthening women’s economic participation requires more than aspiration. It requires sustained measurement, credible analysis, evaluation of policy efforts and the ability to track progress over time. Without reliable data, it is impossible to know whether interventions are working.
For example, stronger data partnerships could help identify barriers to maternal health care access, including rural service availability and the reach of Medicaid coverage. Population-level data can clarify the prevalence and risks of violence faced by women and girls, as well as its connections to mental health and substance use. Workforce data can illuminate where childcare access gaps or wage disparities are limiting women’s economic participation.
These are measurable policy questions. Addressing them requires collaboration among universities, state agencies, healthcare systems, employers and community organizations.
Higher education institutions across Louisiana should be part of that ecosystem — generating trusted data, evaluating solutions, and helping track progress over time.
Louisiana’s current rankings are not destiny. They are indicators. Other states have reduced maternal mortality, strengthened protections against severe domestic violence and improved women’s workforce participation. Louisiana can do the same — but only if we measure honestly, evaluate rigorously, and act on evidence.
Women’s success is Louisiana’s success — and higher education should help ensure the data show it.
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Anita Raj, a New Orleans-based researcher, is executive director of Newcomb Institute, the Nancy Reeves Dreux chair and a professor of public health at the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. Trained as a developmental psychologist, her research focuses on gender inequities in health and development. She has over 300 peer-reviewed publications and has been an adviser to the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While she works nationally and internationally, her local research includes leading LaVEX, Louisiana’s first statewide survey on violence, discrimination and health. Anita was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2025.
