Heartland Forward Launches Maternal Resiliency Index for Local Policy

Developed by the Maternal & Child Health Center for Policy and Practice in collaboration with economist Emily Oster and Dr. Neel Shah of Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies America, the index provides an interactive view of health disparities. By categorizing data into stressors, support systems, and actual birth outcomes—such as preterm birth rates and prenatal care access—the tool allows leaders to visualize whether a specific region is performing better or worse than expected.

This platform aims to shift decision-making from intuition to evidence-based strategy. For instance, a legislator evaluating the expansion of midwifery services can use the index to analyze local prenatal care access and proximity to maternity units, effectively forecasting the impact of policy shifts. The project, supported by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, currently functions as a beta version with plans to incorporate economic return-on-investment metrics by 2027. Future iterations will offer stakeholders, including employers and philanthropists, the ability to calculate the financial and health outcomes of interventions like Medicaid doula reimbursements, directly supporting the goal of halving U.S. maternal mortality within five years.