Mike Smith and his team at the East Tennessee State University College of Public Health’s Center for Applied Research and Evaluation in Women’s Health awarded a new Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) grant this spring to lead statewide assessment and strategic planning for maternal health innovation in Tennessee.
Rates of maternal morbidity and mortality have been on the rise in the US. Importantly, substantial disparities exist in maternal morbidity and mortality based on income, rurality, race, ethnicity, and other factors. Improving maternal health across states and local areas has become a key priority for the federal government over the past five years, including a Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Improve Maternal Health that was released in 2020. This has led to an increasing federal investment in state-based efforts to improve maternal health. As a result of this increased investment, the Tennessee Department of Health was one of 9 awardees of the Maternal Health Innovation Grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for the 2022-2027 period.
“We are excited to be working with the Tennessee Department of Health to hear from Tennesseeans about how to improve maternal health,” said Mike Smith, principal investigator on the project. “We will combine the things we learn from them with population-based data to inform the efforts that TDH will fund for the coming years to improve maternal health across the state. This will include identifying barriers to healthy living that we can work to overcome and things that promote good health that we can continue to invest in.”
The team includes Nathan Hale as senior co-investigator, Erin Mauck and Liane Ventura as co-investigators, Amanda Peterson as project coordinator, Rhonda Williams as doctoral research assistant, and Amal Khoury as senior advisor.
The Center for Applied Research and Evaluation in Women’s Health team is leading efforts to conduct a comprehensive statewide assessment of maternal health needs and resources and develop a statewide strategic plan for maternal health innovation. With funding from The Division of Family Health and Wellness at the Tennessee Department of Health, the team will conduct focus groups with Tennessee residents in all regions of the state and will also collaborate with TDH staff on quantitative data analysis relating to maternal health improvement. This work will identify key maternal health issues, sources of support, health resources, sources of care, and sources of information, among other potential topics. This information will culminate in a strategic plan to guide the state’s programmatic and policy work around maternal health improvement.