Core Compass was created to bring clarity and direction to complex systems by honoring the full picture.
Maternal health is just the beginning.
Maternal health is at the core of Core Compass, but it is not the edge of our work. It serves as an anchor — a place of rigor, credibility, and lived understanding with our overall approach extending across a broader ecosystem. We see relationships, identity, family structures, and the cultural conditions that shape care as parts of an interconnected system.
Whether working in research, policy, wellness, or creative fields like film and media, Core Compass approaches each space through the same lens: one that sees connection where others see separation, and meaning where others see complexity.
OUR FOUNDER
Aika At The Core
Aika Aluc, MPH, founded Core Compass after realizing that her work across policy, research, advocacy, and wellness never fit neatly into one box. Over time, she came to see that this wasn’t a limitation, but a strength.
Today, she brings these disciplines together to navigate complex systems with clarity and intention. As a PhD candidate with nearly a decade of experience across federal agencies, national public health organizations, and policy advocacy, including director-level leadership at the national level, she leads Core Compass as an impact-driven consultancy. Her work supports organizations through strategic clarity and community-centered advocacy, integrating research, policy, narrative, and lived experience to inform decision-making and translate insight into strategies that organizations can actually act on or put into practice.
A certified prenatal and postnatal wellness professional, Aika’s work is grounded in lived experience and the physical dimensions of care. As a group fitness and cycling instructor, she remains closely connected to the realities of how care is experienced in the body. Her approach bridges analysis and story to create work that is both deeply informed and deeply human.
Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national conferences, including APHA. Her published research is available on Google Scholar.
The Realities Shaping the Maternal Health Ecosystem
According to the CDC, more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are considered preventable.
Over 50% of pregnancy-related deaths occur after delivery (postpartum), with 63% occurring within the first year.
Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women.
What happens after birth isn’t just clinical. It’s shaped by whether people can access and afford care, mental health support, and policies like paid leave that determine if they have time to recover.
Where Narrative Leads to Action
Across every area of work, storytelling is not an add-on — it is the connective tissue. It is how evidence becomes accessible, how systems feel personal, and how meaningful change begins.
Narrative translates complexity into understanding, bridging data and lived experience in ways that make insight relatable and actionable. At Core Compass, it shapes how ideas are communicated, how perspectives shift, and how decisions move forward.
Because when story is done well, it doesn’t just inform. It moves people. And that movement is what drives meaningful change.
