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Elevance Health Foundation Commits More Than $14.5 Million to Address Maternal Health
With a potential to affect a collective of 100,000 women, the grants will focus on improving maternal health initiatives and outcomes.
The Foundation is awarding grants to programs that focus on one or more of the following goals: reducing the preterm birth rate, reducing maternal morbidity and mortality, and reducing the primary cesarean rate. These grants are part of up to $30 million the Foundation plans to invest over the next three years to make significant progress on improving maternal health outcomes.
This round of maternal health grants is the first of Elevance Health Foundation’s commitment of up to $90 million over the next three years to improve maternal health, promote the use of food as medicine, combat substance use disorder, and provide disaster relief, allowing the organization to improve critical health and health-equity challenges in communities today.
“Elevance Health Foundation’s focused approach allows us to make a greater impact in these areas,” said Shantanu Agrawal, M.D., chief health officer of Elevance Health. “Not only will these grants help ensure women and their babies can achieve optimal health and well-being, but they will put us at the forefront of improving maternal and infant health, especially in communities of color, where health disparities have a dramatic impact on outcomes.”
As part of the Foundation’s commitment of up to $30 million in maternal health grants, $7 million will be awarded to Creating Healthier Communities (CHC) to combat disparities in preterm birth rates among Black women. Through the Foundation’s grant, CHC will bring to market a novel point-of-care tool developed to screen Black mothers for stress and social determinants of health correlated to indicators of preterm births. In addition, more than 15 organizations will receive more than $7.6 million over the next three years and begin their maternal health initiatives as the first round of awardees.
Maternal and Child Health Grantees
- 18 Reasons
- Betances Health Center
- Birth in Color RVA Foundation
- Black Wellness & Prosperity Center
- Capital Centers of Virginia
- CelebrateOne
- Cobb Health Futures Foundation
- Creating Healthier Communities
- Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies
- Kent State University Foundation
- Life of Hope
- Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service
- Marjaree Mason Center
- Morehouse School of Medicine
- Open Table, Inc.
- Postpartum Support Virginia
- Public Health Foundation Enterprises (SisterWeb)