(838) Financial Benefits of Audacious but Achievable Goals for Improving Maternal and Neonatal Mortality

The United States has the highest maternal and neonatal mortality rates (MMR, NMR), of High-Income Countries, disproportionately for people of color. Inadequate prenatal care contributes to these outcomes, producing increased neonatal costs and diminished economic contributions having long-term financial consequences < ![if !supportAnnotations] >[MK1]< ![endif] > (FC). Efforts to improve outcomes and reduce disparities have been hampered by laws requiring most states’ require balanced budgets. Unfettered economic arguments are required to justify to gov’t agencies the long-term benefits of upfront expenditures for better outcomes for mother and babies and resultant financial benefits for individuals and states.  We have introduced a new financial metric (DEVELOP score) measuring long-term FC of governmental (gov’t) fiscal policies, including the value of maternal and neonatal lives saved vs typical metrics of costs versus social benefits. Herein, we calculated lives saved and FC of even incremental improvements for every US state by improving its MMR and NMR.
 

Study Design:

Using public, vetted national 2021 databases, we ranked MMR and NMR for all US states and DC from best to worst calculating lives saved and FC (by DEVELOP Score) by modeling better care if every state moved up just 1 spot in the state’s ranking (i.e., to next highest ranked state’s statistics).

Results:

Nationally, moving up just 1 spot on a states’ rankings saves 451 neonates and 45 mothers generating an annual increased total FC of $504,313,479 (resultant improved economics of $457,149,465 for neonates and $47,164,015 for mothers. Fig 1).

Conclusion:

Mixed financial/social benefit constructs have mostly failed to convince the Federal and State gov’ts to invest sufficiently to substantively improve prenatal and neonatal outcomes. By modeling even modest, reachable gains, our approach provides “cover” for bureaucracies to justify a longer- term vision. Instead of focusing exclusively on curbing expenditures, these monies should be considered as investments which will be considerably profitable in the long run.