Fleda Mask Jackson, PhD

Biography

A scholar, educator, and activist, Dr. Fleda Mask Jackson is a nationally recognized expert on maternal mental health, stress, and depression. She is the President of Majaica, LLC, a research firm and think tank where she  leads Save 100 Babies®. Her work centers on the concept of contextualized stress where the intersection of the lived experiences of race and gender, including discrimination, form the basis for assessing stress and resilience, as they pose risk, and support for Black women during pregnancy and postpartum. Dr. Jackson led groundbreaking research on stress and resilience resulting in the development of a unique racial and gendered stress measure (the Jackson, Hogue, Phillips Contextualized Stress Measure), a dissemination /intervention model, and an advocacy approach for Black women’s health.

As a leading authority on stress from gendered racism and its impact on maternal and birth outcomes, she's the author of numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters, and refereed public presentations on the topic. In 2021 she served as a guest editor for a special edition of the Maternal and Child Health Journal on Black reproductive health.

Her work is cited in major newspapers, magazines, and media outlets that include ProPublica, Vox, Ebony, Essence, Vogue, CNN, and NPR. She has been featured in the documentaries When the Bough Breaks, an episode of the award-winning PBS series, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick, and in Crisis in the Crib. Dr. Jackson also appeared in the Lightbox production, Death by Delivery, a documentary on Black maternal mortality in Georgia.

Dr. Jackson was a Professor of Applied Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health (Emory University) and a visiting scholar in the Psychology Department at Spelman College. Her collaborations include work with the Center for Excellence in Women’s Health at the Harvard Medical School (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), The Ford Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Southeast Regional Office of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Healthy Start, nationally and local sites. She served as a member of the Advisory subcommittee on Health Disparities for the CDC Director and as a member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM), an appointment approved by the White House under President Barak Obama. As a member of SACIM, Dr. Jackson was the chair of the Healthy Start subcommittee. She was the chair and co-chair of the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta’s Babies Born Healthy Initiative and recently served as a co-leader for the March of Dimes' Birth Equity initiative.

Dr. Jackson is the recipient of the Spelman College Alumnae Achievement Award in Health and Science, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta’s Live United Award, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Torch Award for being an activist for mental and physical health, and the Center for Black Women’s Wellness Health Pioneer Award. In 2014, she received the Maternal and Child Health Award from the Georgia Public Health Association and was honored by Black Mamas Matter Alliance and the March of Dimes for her contributions to maternal and child health. The Black Mamas Matter Alliance established the Jackson, Rowley, Hogan Research Award in honor of the outstanding research and practice in the field of maternal and infant health by Dr. Jackson and her colleagues. Most recently AMCHP recognized Dr. Jackson by awarding her the John McQueen Lecture Award.