Launching a 24/7 mental health hotline for moms
Since its launch on Mother’s Day 2022, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline has received over 50,000 calls and texts, providing free, confidential help to pregnant women, moms and their loves ones no matter where they live.
Doubling funding for home visiting
President Biden signed into law the first expansion of the home visiting program in a decade, which will double funding for the program to $800 million a year. HRSA will be able to serve 20,000 more parents and children than in 2020 with in-home visits from trained providers to improve maternal health and advance child development.
Implementing evidence-based practices for safer births
We have engaged 75% of all labor and delivery facilities (over 2,000 facilities in total) where HRSA offers programs to improve maternal health care so that hospitals are prepared to respond to the leading causes of adverse pregnancy outcomes like hemorrhage, behavioral health issues, high blood pressure, and other factors.
Expanding mental health tele-consultation for kids
Thanks to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the American Rescue Plan, and annual funding, we’ve expanded the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access (PMHCA) teleconsultation line from 21 to 46 states over the past four years. This has resulted in training over 31,000 health care providers since 2020 to expand their ability to screen and treat children who struggle with anxiety, depression, and other behavioral concerns, and these providers have served more than nine times as many children as they did in 2020. PMHCA may now impact as many as 3.5 million children.
Serving the nation’s pregnant women and children
In each of the past four years, we’ve reached more than nine in 10 pregnant women and nearly all infants in the nation through our Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, which funds essential screenings, preventive care, and other services for mothers and children.
Sustaining the life-saving Poison Help Line
HRSA’s support for the Poison Help Line has enabled state poison control centers to respond to over 10 million calls since 2020.
Providing preventive care to women and kids without out-of-pocket costs
Thanks to our Bright Futures and Women’s Preventive Services programs, more than 35 million children and nearly 68 million women with private health insurance received preventive screenings and services without any out-of-pocket costs. During the Biden-Harris Administration, HRSA has accepted new or updated Guidelines to include, for the first time, coverage of double-electric breast pumps, universal suicide screening for adolescents, and patient navigation services for breast and cervical cancer screening.
Increasing support for community-based infant and maternal health programs
HRSA expanded services through our Healthy Start programs, community-based organizations that provide services for pregnant women and their babies in high-need communities. Now we reach 85,000 people—29% more people than just two years ago. Healthy Start has provided funding to grow, diversify, and sustain the doula workforce in communities with high rates of infant death and poor maternal health outcomes. From 2021 – 2022, 418 doula candidates were trained, and 205 doula candidates received certifications.
Supporting and growing the maternal and pediatric workforce
HRSA’s maternal and child health training programs reached over 270,000 professionals in maternal and child health, including in adolescent health, nutrition, pediatric pulmonology and public health; provided training to over 52,793 additional health professionals to improve their ability to screen, diagnose, and treat children with autism and other developmental disabilities; and delivered diagnostic services to confirm or rule out autism and other developmental disabilities in over 356,206 children, a 40% increase from 2020 to 2022.
Enhancing services for children with special health care needs
In 2023, MCHB served over 25,000 individuals with sickle cell disease, a 13% increase from the previous year, which represents about a quarter of the population with sickle cell disease in the United States. Through 59 family-staffed centers nationwide, HRSA also helps over 200,000 families yearly access care and coverage for their children’s complex needs.
Empowering partners to improve health outcomes
We created initiatives—like the HRSA Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative—focused on giving the recipients of HRSA-supported services a leading voice in HRSA’s policy and program work.
Advancing maternal health through health centers
HRSA launched new community health center maternal health care innovations to improve early access to prenatal care and expand care services for new moms and their babies; health centers have delivered high quality prenatal care to more than two million patients over the last four years.
Increasing the maternal health workforce in underserved communities
HRSA launched new incentives and new training programs to grow the maternal care workforce by over 5,800 providers, including obstetricians, nurse midwives, nurse practitioners and community-based doulas, with an emphasis on providing care in maternity care deserts.
Supporting maternal health care in rural communities
HRSA created a new program to expand access to and coordinate health care services before, during, and after pregnancy in rural communities in the South, and expanded the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (Rural MOMS) Program to increase access to maternal and obstetrics care in rural communities and improve health outcomes for mothers and infants.