State Strategies to Improve Maternal Health and Promote Health Equity Compendium

Pregnancy, labor, and delivery-related deaths disproportionally occur among people of color, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Issue

Given the outsized role of Medicaid in maternal health, state policymakers have both a moral imperative and a major opportunity to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of their pregnant/postpartum residents, their infants and families.

This compendium provides information on strategies to improve maternal health outcomes and synthesizes research about the national state-of-play, including state examples, across four domains to support policymakers in improving maternal health:

• Maternal health models
• Quality improvement
• Workforce and benefits
• Eligibility and enrollment/coverage expansion

Key Findings

• Four out of five pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
• Medicaid in maternal health accounts for 75% of all public expenditures for family planning services and covering close to half of all births nationally.
• The end of the federal public health emergency threatens access to coverage and care for the roughly 1.7 million people currently enrolled in the Medicaid or CHIP pregnant eligibility group.

About State Health and Value Strategies—Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs

State Health and Value Strategies (SHVS) assists states in their efforts to transform health and healthcare by providing targeted technical assistance to state officials and agencies. The program is a grantee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, led by staff at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. The program connects states with experts and peers to undertake healthcare transformation initiatives. By engaging state officials, the program provides lessons learned, highlights successful strategies and brings together states with experts in the field. Learn more at www.shvs.org.

About Manatt Health

This issue brief was prepared by Patricia Boozang, Linda Elam, Kaylee O’Connor, and Michelle Savuto. Manatt Health integrates legal and consulting expertise to better serve the complex needs of clients across the healthcare system. Our diverse team of more than 160 attorneys and consultants from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and its consulting subsidiary, Manatt Health Strategies, LLC, is passionate about helping our clients advance their business interests, fulfill their missions, and lead healthcare into the future. For more information, visit https://www.manatt.com/Health.