Elevating Whole Health, Advancing Health Beyond Healthcare

Improving Maternal Health

The United States is facing serious maternal health concerns which are particularly impactful to women and babies of color. Approximately 700 women die in the U.S. each year as a result of pregnancy complications.

With Elevance Health’s affiliated health plans providing insurance coverage for 1 in 8 of the nation’s births, we are dedicated to improving maternal health outcomes and reducing health inequities with member-focused initiatives, value-based provider strategies, predictive modeling, and Elevance Health Foundation grants.

In 2022, we launched a maternal clinical program with our health plan affiliates to deploy obstetric specialty practice consultants into care provider practices across 22 Medicaid markets, with 10 of those markets having a joint commercial footprint. This program is already showing great results and yielding cost savings.

The Elevance Health Foundation Supports Maternal and Child

The Elevance Health Foundation will invest up to $30 million over three years to support programs that ensure women and their babies can achieve optimal health and well-being. Each grant will focus on one or more of the following goals: reducing the preterm birth rate, reducing maternal morbidity and mortality, and reducing the primary cesarean rate.

In 2022, The Elevance Health Foundation awarded $18.3 million to 26 non-profit organizations that are implementing programs that advance health equity by: improving access to quality maternal health care and services, addressing mental health, providing high-touch interventions for those most at risk for complications, and addressing health related social needs.

Clinical outcomes among programs in the first round of grands have been positive, of 445 full term births out of 474.

The Nourishing Pregnancy Program

This program supporting maternal health is offered by 18 Reasons, a nonprofit community cooking school, which empowers communities in San Francisco, California, with the confidence and creativity to buy, cook, and eat nutritious food. The services include:

• Support for maternal health by providing food security, access to nutritious food, food skills education, and critical social support for new parents with a peer model.
• Help in reducing health inequities by providing intensive services that support the physical and mental health of women of color and their families throughout pregnancy, birth, and the early postpartum period, while focusing on reducing racial disparities in peripartum care and birth outcomes.

Nourishing Pregnancy Program outcomes in 2022

• The grant program reached 104 people.
• 95% (99 out of 104) of babies born to graduates of the cohort were born at full term (between 37- and 42-weeks).
• Food security status positively changed by an average of 14% from the pre-test to the post-test for this cohort.

The Housing for Pregnant Women Program

This program targeting pregnancy and homelessness is offered by CelebrateOne in Columbus, Ohio, a non-profit community organization with a mission to reduce infant mortality and improve health equity, so more babies reach their first birthday. Their services include:

• Ensuring enrolled participants reside in safe, healthy, and affordable housing, to increase the likelihood of delivering full-term and healthy birth weight infants.
• Providing a person-centered, trauma-informed approach that includes homelessness prevention assistance, rental and utility assistance, housing search and move-in assistance, housing stabilization services, maternal and child health supports, integrated care coordination, and flexible interim housing for women unable to be accommodated in a traditional shelter.

CelebrateOne outcomes to date:

• 75 women have been housed and delivered their babies, of which 84% were born full-term.
• With support of this grant funding, CelebrateOne has been able to substantially decrease wait times for families to be placed in safe housing. They are now housing families in 40 days on average versus 4 months in January 2022.

Expanding Doula Care

Elevance Health recognizes the vital role of doulas in maternal health. Doulas provide person-centered care to pregnant and postpartum women through information, education, and physical, social, and emotional support before, during, and after birth process. They play a significant role in addressing health disparities and improving birth outcomes.

In 2022, the Elevance Health Foundation issued financial support to many programs across the country to expand their doula care. This includes The BLACK Doula Network. The BDN is a non-profit organization building an infrastructure to attract, support, and sustain doulas to help reduce health disparities in Fresno, California.

A Doula Care Study

An Elevance Health retrospective cohort study conducted with affiliate health plan Medicaid members in California, Florida, and New York, evaluated doula care and its impact on high-risk expectant mothers. Based on the positive results, we increased our efforts to fund doula programs.

The study found the following benefits:

• Women who received doula care during pregnancy had 53% lower odds of cesarean delivery (c-section).
• Women who received doula care during delivery had 57% lower odds of postpartum depression or anxiety.
• Women who received doula care during their first trimester showed the greatest (62%) reduction in odds of a cesarean delivery.

[Source: Internal maternity data (2022)] [Source: Internal data evaluation (2022)] [Source: Addressing Maternal Health Disparities: Doula Access in Medicaid (elevancehealth.com)]