Signed by Governor Phil Murphy

Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to amend and pass a bill that requires health care professionals to undergo implicit and explicit bias training.

Highlights:

• Defines “Implicit bias” as a bias in judgment or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes, including implicit prejudice and implicit stereotypes, that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control (Sec. 1).

• Requires hospitals to provide an evidence-based implicit training program for all health professionals who provide perinatal treatment and care to pregnant women at the hospital or birthing center (Sec. 1).

• Requires the training program to include (Sec.1): 

• Identifying previous and current unconscious biases and misinformation when providing perinatal treatment and care to pregnant women;

• Identifying personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural barriers to inclusion;

• Information on the effects of historical and contemporary exclusion and oppression of minority communities;

• Information about cultural identity across racial and ethnic groups;

• Information about communicating more effectively across racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities;

• Information about reproductive justice;

• Discussion on power dynamics and organizational decision-making and their effects on implicit bias;

• Discussion on health inequities and racial and ethnic disparities within the field of perinatal care, and

• How implicit bias may contribute to pregnancy-related deaths and maternal and infant health outcomes; and

• Corrective measures to decrease implicit bias at the interpersonal and institutional levels.

Full Bill Text