Mobile health clinics are combating maternity care deserts in Florida

An OB/GYN mobile outreach clinic directed by researchers Adetola F. Louis-Jacques, Arielle Ayotte, and Michelle Nall at the University of Florida is helping to address a maternity care desert in north-central Florida, they report for The Conversation.

Nationwide, 2.5 million, or 4%, of American women of childbearing age live in a maternity care desert, they report. A maternity care desert is any county with no hospital, birthing center or obstetric health care professional. “Women in maternity care deserts travel an average of 35 miles to reach a birthing hospital, compared to an average of 9 miles for women in full-access counties.”

Traveling longer distances for obstetric care is directly correlated with poorer infant and maternal health outcomes, studies show.

Florida counties with full, low, or no access to maternity care. 
(Map via The Conversation CC, data from March of Dimes 2023 statistics, Click to enlarge)

In Florida, only three of the 14 north-central counties have full access to obstetric care, the researchers explain, and six have low access. The other five counties are deserts that they estimate to have 3,400 women of childbearing age. They also found in a 2024 report that 18 of Florida’s 21 rural hospitals have no more obstetric care, often because of a lack of funding.

Their new mobile clinic, started in February last year, offers prenatal and postpartum care, breastfeeding support, family planning, annual gynecological exams and preventive health screenings. They have already cared for 194 women in 616 visits.

Everything is free to the patients, and they offer assistance to help eligible patients apply for Medicaid benefits. “In 2023, about 1 in 7 women of childbearing age in Florida were uninsured,” they report.

A survey of mobile clinic patients across the U.S. found they “reported receiving holistic care, feeling safer than they’d felt in other health care settings and interacting with staff who were mindful of health care costs,” as well as being able to “maintain continuity of care.”

Most mobile clinics don’t offer maternal and infant health services, the researchers explain, and as maternity care deserts grow, more OB/GYN mobile health clinics like this one can directly provide low-income, rural areas with regular prenatal and postpartum care that women wouldn’t have access to otherwise.