Issue Briefs | Oct 18, 2022

State Strategies to Improve Maternal Health and Promote Health Equity Compendium

Patricia Boozang, Linda Elam, Kaylee O’Connor, and Michelle Savuto, Manatt Health

Given the outsized role of Medicaid in maternal health—accounting for 75% of all public expenditures for family planning services and covering close to half of all births nationally—state policymakers have both a moral imperative and major opportunity to improve and protect the health and well-being 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: maternal health models, quality improvement, workforce and benefits, and eligibility and enrollment/coverage expansion. This resource builds on a September 2022 maternal health roundtable convened by State Health and Value Strategies (SHVS) and Manatt Health with California, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee.