U of T student's startup aims to improve birth outcomes for racialized women

As a health sciences researcher, Elsie Amoako spent a lot of time studying birth outcomes for racialized women in Canada – and was disappointed with what she found.

So she decided to do something about it.

The graduate student at U of T’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, is launching a startup that aims to improve maternal health care for Canadian women of African, Caribbean and Latin American descent.

Called Mommy Monitor, the smartphone app asks pregnant women and new mothers to record key data about their lives – sleep, diet, exercise – and uses a specially designed algorithm to spot problematic patterns. The app also connects users to patient navigators – employees who are equipped to answer questions, offer guidance and refer users to a physician, if necessary.

“I realized that if we could identify how a woman lives and any potential risks around that, we could let her know and help her change her habits slightly,” says Amoako, who is also a co-chair of the Black Physicians’ Association of Ontario and a participant in the Next36 entrepreneur initiative. “That could change the outcome of her health care.”