Lauren Nacke, M.S.W., LCSW (she/her), is a Ph.D. student at the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how federal and state policies shape maternal and reproductive health systems, access to care, and disparities in pregnancy and postpartum outcomes.
Drawing on more than a decade of experience in perinatal social work, Lauren uses mixed methods, with a particular emphasis on qualitative research, to study how patients, families, clinicians, and communities interpret, implement, and experience policies. Her work includes perinatal substance use and child welfare reporting, maternal health disparities, reproductive health policy, and abortion access.
Grounded in intersectionality and reproductive justice, Lauren’s work centers the experiences of people most affected by policy and examines where laws, institutional practices, and lived experience diverge. Her goal is to produce research that clarifies how policy decisions operate in practice and informs changes in maternal and reproductive health policy and systems.