Health investigation finds startling gap in funding to prevent maternal deaths, new grant award aims for change

USA Facts map, from CDC data

National maternal mortality rates have been on a steady incline, with far more minority women dying while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy than white women, reports Sarah Jane Tribble of KFF Health News. Despite the rate difference, a federal program designed to "combat the alarming rates of rural women dying from pregnancy complications. . . . hadn't sent a grant to serve mothers in majority-Black rural communities."

A KFF Health News investigation discovered the possible funding-bias and criticized the program for neglecting some of the most marginalized women. The program has addressed that problem by "supporting an organization that serves predominantly Black counties in the Deep South," Tribble writes.

The Institute for the Advancement of Minority Health in Madison, Mississippi, was "one of two winners in the latest round of an initiative administered by Health Resource and Services Administration," Tribble writes. Mississippi has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. and the highest proportion of Black births in the U.S. "In June, KFF Health News found that HRSA's Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program had failed to fund any sites in the Southeast . . . . despite a White House declaration to make Black maternal health a priority, and despite statistics showing America's maternal mortality rate rising sharply in recent years."

Peiyin Hung, deputy director of the University of South Carolina's Rural and Minority Health Research Center, is a member of the health equity advisory group for the maternal grant program. Hung said "the Mississippi nonprofit is an unusual awardee because it is not part of a larger health system." Tribble reports: "The grant application process skewed toward large health systems because they 'have much higher capacity to form a statewide network', Hung said. That's, in part, because grant winners were required to create a network of specific health care clinics, hospitals, and the state Medicaid office. In recent years, the agency has 'become much more flexible,' Hung said."

Tribble adds: "The success of the Mississippi application is a 'promising signal' for states that don't have large rural health systems focusing on maternal care, said Hung, who hopes a South Carolina applicant receives a grant in the future."