Sunday, December 22, 2024
12/22/2024
The mortality of a woman during pregnancy, at delivery, or in the year after the end of pregnancy is tragic for her family and for the close-knit society in Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI). Rural and remote populations have a higher risk of pregnancy-related deaths than urban populations due to geological distribution of islands, transportation, timely access for care and interventions, with racial and ethnic disparities persisting within rural, urban and jurisdictions of RMI communities. There is a wide range in the pregnancy-related mortality ratio between states and jurisdictions, the state with the highest pregnancy-related mortality ratio is four times higher than that of the lowest. Findings from Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) indicated that more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Information from MMRC reviews will enable RMI to identify and prioritize interventions, to improve existing process, strengthen systems, and enhance clinical and non-clinical case abstractions that prevent deaths and reduce health disparities among the residents of RMI. The grant funds will establish, support, and improve the capacity to develop and implement RMI’s data-informed strategies to prevent pregnancy-related deaths and reduce disparities among disproportionate, socio-economic, social determinants of health, and trauma impacted populations of RMI by improving data availability and improve quality to better identify and characterize pregnancy-related deaths and related health inequities in RMI. This will support RMI agencies /organizations to partner, collaborate, and coordinate/manage Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) to identify and characterize pregnancy-related deaths for prevention. This will identify pregnancy-associated deaths; conduct vital records quality assurance; precise case abstraction of clinical/non-clinical data into a standard established data system (Maternal Mortality Review Information Application (MMRIA); the funds will enable to conduct informant interviews to inform individual case review; conduct multidisciplinary case reviews by diverse committees; and enter committee decisions into MMRIA to understand and improve qualitative aspects. This support will initiate and improve quality assurance processes, by partnering with CDC for technical assistance, this will facilitate data collection process, improve data quality, completeness, and timeliness. Collected data will be reviewed, validated, analyzed, and shared with MMRCs. The findings will inform RMI maternal health programs to develop targeted prevention strategies, policies that aid to reduce pregnancy-related deaths, allocate resources, to focus on reducing inequities in RMI.The funds from the grant will establish and enable systematic and comprehensive review of deaths to develop recommended strategies for preventing future maternal deaths in RMI. Established review committees will access multiple sources of accurate clinical and non-clinical information that provide a deeper understanding of the circumstances surrounding a death as t hey can develop recommendations for action to prevent similar deaths in the future in RMI. With the support of CDC, jurisdictional MMRCs across the US will be operationalized, a local and national approach to collecting and sharing data on pregnancy-related deaths. With these data, MMRCs will be able to facilitate an understanding of the drivers of maternal mortality and complications of pregnancy and associated disparities; help identify interventions at patient/family, provider, facility, system, and community levels of RMI for preventing future deaths; and support the implementation of policies, programs, and initiatives at the right time and in the right places for families and communities who need them most in RMI.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).