In the clinical setting, providers work to manage every possible aspect of maternal health risks. However, social determinants of health (SDOH), all of which exist outside a clinician’s reach, have an outsized and avoidable impact on those risks. Food insecurity is one of the most significant contributors to maternal health complications, dramatically increasing cost of care and poor outcomes. As a result, maternal health in the United States is, to use precisely the right term, in crisis.
Fortunately, there’s work being done, and with the right partners, a tremendous opportunity to do even more.
The Risk of Food Insecurity on Maternal Health
Per the March of Dimes (MOD), "one thing remains constant: an alarmingly high preterm birth rate. In 2023, more than 370,000 babies were born preterm—10.4% of all births—earning the US a D+ for the third year in a row.”
Nutrition’s impact on maternal health is so pronounced that it’s been a top policy priority for MOD for years. It has stayed a priority for a reason. Whether pre-existing or gestational, hypertension can lead to preeclampsia, eclampsia, or placental abruption. Diabetes (again, both pre-existing or gestational) increases risk of preterm birth, macrosomia, and additional birth complications. Obesity also increases the risk for gestational diabetes and, as a result, all issues outlined above, as well as creating an additional preeclampsia risk, still birth, and delivery complications. Making matters even more complex, development of gestational diabetes leads to a 7-fold increase of later developing type II diabetes in the mother, leading to the lifelong management (and costs) of a chronic condition with its own set of challenges. The numbers are sobering. Per Feeding America, 1 in 11 pregnant individuals are struggling with food insecurity, drastically increasing their exposure to these conditions. Finally, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) women face the highest risks of maternal mortality, preterm births, and low birthweight infants. Addressing these challenges requires not only access to quality care but implementing targeted interventions that meet the specific needs of these mothers and families.
The Current Impact on Maternal Food Insecurity
There is hope, though. And there are already smaller scale success stories where private, public, and charitable organizations are mobilizing to help support these at-risk families.
- Catholic Charities Foodbank is working with Purdue Extension, and the All Babies Healthy Start Initiative. The program is holistic, combining food deliveries, cooking classes, nutrition education classes, personalized health, childcare, and even transportation.
- BluePlus, BCBS of Minnesota’s HMO, has similarly partnered with NourishedRx to do the same, combining education, access and direct delivery of food. It was an immediate success, with a sharp reduction in low birth weight and a reduction of admissions to the NICU. The program has been expanded state-wide in MN, speaking to its value in both outcomes and, critically for an HMO allocating resources, the cost of care.
- March of Dimes Georgia has partnered with Goodr, leveraging the latter’s deep expertise in food logistics and distribution, providing 65,000 meals to 2000 families. The pilot’s early success led to expansion as MOD and Goodr are now running Hunger Solutions activations in three markets.
In each case, the secret to success is that programs cover both sides of the old metaphor about teaching someone to fish vs. giving someone a fish. Through that approach, it’s both, meaning they address acute needs and chronic problems.
Fundamentally though, one of the most exciting elements of intervention is this: all maternal health initiative results are doubled because they’re impacting two generations at once.
The Next Big Step: Targeting with SDOH Insights at Scale
These, and hundreds of other maternal nutrition initiatives across the country are doing everything they can to eliminate this highly avoidable SDOH risk. Every pair of hands are at work doing what they can. And the feeling that they’re fighting back the tide is no doubt overwhelming. That feeling is precisely why we built SocialScape®. SocialScape enables us and our partners to match social risk data with claims, providing actionable, community, and individual level-view of SDOH factors. Healthcare providers and payers can then target interventions more precisely, ensuring resources are going where they will have the greatest impact on maternal health outcomes (and any other SDOH, like food insecurity and other critical risks.)
We’ve partnered with many organizations like these (for any number of social risk factors) across the US to help them not just know, but understand the challenges faced by their communities. After all, the better you can know what SDOH risk factors a block, neighborhood, city, county, state, etc. are each facing, the better interventions can be targeted and tailored to do the absolute best with available resources. That, in turn, then raises the local tide and can open the door to new targeting, new intervention, transforming communities from terrifying spikes on a chart of adverse outcomes and costs to a beacon of hope.
And much like how maternal health impacts two generations, when we partner with payers and their claims data gets matched to our social risk insights? The world of matched, individual intervention targeting opens like never before. With that sort of granularity, no opportunity to impact chronic and acute health conditions facing unnecessary challenges from food insecurity (or any SDOH barrier) can hide.
It’s an exciting time to work with partners working to drive real change around social determinants of health, especially when it comes to maternal health. By leveraging SDOH insights, we can ensure that the most vulnerable mothers and their families receive the tailored interventions they need to thrive. With SocialScape®, we’re not just mapping risk, but also opening the door to more effective, data-driven solutions that reduce health disparities, improve maternal health outcomes, and ultimately build a healthier future for both mother and child. If you feel the same way, we should talk. There’s a lot of work to be done, and with Socially Determined, there’s a whole new way to do it.