{"id":139608,"date":"2024-05-28T07:36:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=139608"},"modified":"2024-05-27T19:53:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T00:53:40","slug":"heartland-forward-releases-new-research-and-action-plan-to-help-address-maternal-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/heartland-forward-releases-new-research-and-action-plan-to-help-address-maternal-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartland Forward Releases New Research and Action Plan to Help Address Maternal Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>Focused effort to support mothers and their families to drive long-term impact<\/em>\u202f<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Against a backdrop where the <strong>United States<\/strong> is confronting \u00a0one of the highest rates of maternal deaths among all high-resource countries, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/heartlandforward.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Heartland Forward<\/a><\/strong> announced new research and a corresponding action plan to offer practical solutions for policymakers, providers, insurers, philanthropists, and businesses working to improve outcomes for mother and child. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/heartlandforward.org\/case-study\/the-economic-case-for-investing-in-maternal-health\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Economic Case for Investing in Maternal Healt<\/a>h<\/strong><em>, <\/em>focuses on <strong>Arkansas<\/strong>, <strong>Louisiana<\/strong>, <strong>Mississippi<\/strong>, and <strong>Ohio<\/strong>. It includes primary interviews with local, state and\u00a0community health care professionals providing new insights into the economic impact of poor maternal health care and issues related to inequitable access to providers.\u202f Some of the key findings include:\u202f \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li> The impact of negative maternal health outcomes on the economy is\u00a0significant. Undesirable outcomes from pregnancy cost the U.S. $165.3 billion in additional medical expenses and lost economic growth. For\u00a0example,\u202fpreterm births can cost up to $237,668 compared to $6,370 for a healthy full-term baby.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An estimated $79 billion could be saved nationally if greater access to\u00a0existing, cost-effective services like prenatal care, mental health care and\u00a0Community Health Workers (CHWs) were made available.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the four states of focus in the report, births that occurred outside a mother\u2019s\u00a0county of residence cost up to $221 million in non-medical expenses, like\u00a0transportation and lost wages, cumulatively each year\u2014reflecting the\u00a0disparity of regional health care infrastructures, availability of specialized\u00a0maternity services and distances mothers must travel for care.\u202f\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to releasing the detailed report, Heartland Forward is sharing a \u201cHeartland Action Plan to Advance Maternal Health Outcomes.\u201d The plan focuses on the following \u00a0four areas of impact:\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Supporting and advocating for Community Health Workers\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Expanding access to telehealth\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Addressing workforce shortages across the health care industry\u202f\u00a0 <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Increasing transparency through data collection and evaluation\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The research report and Action Plan were unveiled during the <strong>Northwest Arkansas Council<\/strong>\u2019s NWA <strong>Health Summit, Addressing and Identifying Barriers within Maternal Health<\/strong><em>, <\/em>which was held in Fayetteville, Arkansas. <strong>Ross DeVol<\/strong>, president and CEO of Heartland Forward, was the keynote speaker and participated on a panel with authors of the research report, <strong>Amir Forati<\/strong> and <strong>Maria Rodriguez-Alcala<\/strong>, who are members of the Heartland Forward team. They discussed the findings of the research and the proposals included in the Action Plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur role at Heartland Forward is to be a resource for states and local communities. \u00a0This means improving the quality of life for families across the 20 states we define as the heartland. We want to help identify and support direct action to solve problems,\u201d said DeVol. \u201cIt is imperative we find practical solutions that can improve women\u2019s health and maternal health over the next three to five years, as too much is at stake for the health and wellness of new, expecting, and future mothers and their children.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About Heartland Forward<\/strong><br><em>Heartland Forward is a think and do tank dedicated to being a resource for states and local communities in the middle of the country. We do this by studying broad economic\u00a0trends and building data-driven and community-tested partnerships, programs and \u00a0policies to address the needs of the heartland to help change the narrative about the middle of the country and accelerate economic growth.\u202f\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14544\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Focused effort to support mothers and their families to drive long-term impact\u202f Against a backdrop where the United<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":139609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1717],"tags":[28833,2369,28831,27318,2299,28834,28828,5,28830,5979,28832],"class_list":["post-139608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-amir-forati","tag-arkansas","tag-health-summit","tag-heartland-forward","tag-louisiana","tag-maria-rodriguez-alcala","tag-maternal-health","tag-mississippi","tag-northwest-arkansas-council","tag-ohio","tag-ross-devol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AdobeStock_maternal-health-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1706&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139610,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139608\/revisions\/139610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}