Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
Enhancing Reviews and Surveillance to Eliminate Maternal Mortality - In response to the notice of funding opportunity, “Enhancing Reviews and Surveillance to Eliminate Maternal Mortality” (CDC-RFA-DP24-0053) from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is applying to address maternal mortality through our Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) and program expansion. The Minnesota Maternal Mortality Review Project (MMMRP) proposal is a collective proposal to advance reviewing pregnancy-associated deaths to reduce and improve maternal outcomes. Minnesota has some of the best health outcomes; consistently ranking in the top 5 for best quality of life in the nation. It also has one of the highest disparities for health outcomes for Black, American Indian, and other people of color. While Minnesota’s maternal health outcomes appear better than national averages, deep disparities reveal implicit biases, inequities in access, gaps in quality of care, and the effects of structural racism. These inequities are reflected in Minnesota’s maternal mortality reporting from 2017-19: Black birthing people (13%) and American Indian birthing people (2%) are disproportionately represented among the pregnancy-associated deaths, making up 27% and 12% of the deaths respectively. In response to addressing these outcomes, the MMMRP’s proposal enhances Minnesota’s capacity to increase timeliness, accuracy, and standardization of information available about pregnancy-related deaths, including documented opportunities for prevention in communities experiencing the highest rates of disparities (Black, American Indian, other populations of color, new immigrants, refugees, and rural). The MMRC will continue to follow best practices for case identification, narrative development, and meeting facilitation. The MMMRP will continue to promptly identify pregnancy-associated deaths and abstract clinical/non-clinical data into the Maternal Mortality Review Information Application (MMRIA). The strategies outlined within this proposed application, combined with Minnesota’s robust maternal mortality review committee, will improve Minnesota’s prevention strategies to reduce maternal deaths, with an emphasis on decreasing racial and ethnic health disparities and enhancing efforts to analyze data and disseminate findings. This proposal will achieve short and intermediate outcomes to continue and elevate intended work over the five-year award period to: • Increased timeliness, accuracy, and standardization of information available about pregnancy-related deaths, including MMRC identified opportunities for prevention. • Increased engagement and cooperation between MMRCs, partners, and communities to communicate information from data on pregnancy-related deaths via debriefing, reimbursement, and continuing education. • Increased availability of MMRC recommendations through partnerships with communities, clinicians, public health practitioners, and decision makers. • Increased adoption of clinical and non-clinical policies and programs that reflect the highest standards of care. • Increased implementation of recommendations that reach or consider the needs of populations disproportionately affected by pregnancy-related mortality. Integrating these interventions will allow MDH to increase timeliness, accuracy, and standardization of information available about pregnancy-related deaths, including documented opportunities for prevention, over the next year.
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).