HHS awards $20 million to address disparities in maternal and infant health

Photo: Oscar Wong/Getty Images

The Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, has announced investments of more than $20 million to reduce disparities in maternal and birth outcomes.

The funding will help expand and diversify the workforce caring for pregnant and postpartum individuals, increase access to obstetrics care in rural communities and support states in tackling inequities in maternal and infant health.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause in this country than white women, according to HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson.

About 700 people die each year during pregnancy or in the year after, according to HHS. Thousands of women each year have unexpected outcomes of labor and delivery with serious short- or long-term health consequences. Rural populations tend to have worse maternal health outcomes than individuals living in urban areas, and there are disparities experienced by racial and ethnic groups. 

HRSA is awarding $9 million to nine grantees through its State Maternal Health Innovation Program to create state-led maternal health task forces. State-specific maternal health data will be used for direct clinical care; workforce training; maternal health data enhancements and community engagement.

HRSA is awarding approximately $4 million to four awardees through its Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program to build care networks that coordinate needs for pregnant individuals; leverage telehealth and specialty care; and improve the financial sustainability of these services in rural communities.  Awardees will work to address unmet needs, which may include underlying health risks, health disparities and other inequities, HHS said. 

HRSA is awarding approximately $3 million to 19 Healthy Start programs to increase the availability of doula services in the communities they serve. The Healthy Start program supports community-based strategies to reduce disparities in infant mortality and improve perinatal outcomes for pregnant and postpartum individuals and their children in areas most affected by infant and maternal mortality. This funding will cover training and compensation for doulas, who provide services to women during pregnancy, birth and postpartum.

HRSA is awarding $4.5 million to nine grantees through its Catalyst for Infant Health Equity Program to reduce infant mortality disparities. These funds will help support coordination of services to address housing and housing-stability management; workforce development and training to address implicit bias, and education and outreach to help community members support maternal and infant health.

THE LARGER TREND

HHS said it is committed to supporting safe pregnancies and childbirth, eliminating pregnancy-related health disparities and improving health outcomes for parents and infants across the country.  

These investments are part of the implementation of the White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis released in June.

In November 2021, HHS announced that more than 200 hospitals signed on to a new program, Perinatal Improvement Collaborative, a contract with Premier. The program evaluates how pregnancy affects overall population health by linking inpatient data of newborns to their mothers.

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org