State Strategies to Improve Maternal Health and Promote Health Equity Compendium

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.