The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

In this engaging account, the first president of Brandeis tells how many formidable obstacles to launching a new university without initial capital endowment or any hope of alumni support for at least a generation were overcome; how academic goals were drafted, distinguished faculty recruited, and chairs endowed; and how a dilapidated campus was expended into a well-organized plant of some 90 buildings. In this revision of the 1976 edition, Abram L. Sachar expands the scope of his commentary and imbues it with a critical depth and objectivity that comes from 20 additional years of active involvement in the service of the university.