Improving Maternal-Infant Health & Health Care

Soon-to-be parents and their babies deserve the healthiest start possible. But maternal and infant deaths in the United States are still higher than any other developed nation, while black women are dying at twice the rate of white women. Public health is taking on these issues through several promising programs.

Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs) are networks of multidisciplinary teams made up of clinicians, providers, public health leaders, patients, families and others who work together on plans to improve health outcomes for pregnant women and infants in the U.S. Every state, as well as Washington, DC, has a PQC that meets to identify health care processes and clinical practices that could be strengthened and then begins to implement quality improvement (QI) initiatives, using the best available methods to effect change as quickly as possible. QI initiatives advance evidence-based clinical practices within health care centers and systems across states and across the nation. Learn more about how PQCs are working together to improve maternal outcomes.

The CDC Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is also helping PQCs learn how to evaluate their QI initiatives and plan communication. Several resources have been made available to PQCs including an evaluation plan tool, an example evaluation plan, recorded evaluation webinars and a communication planning tool.