Abstract

Maternal mortality in the United States remains unacceptably high and unevenly distributed across race/ethnicity and geography (CDC, 2024; Tikkanen et al., 2023). Obstetric care teams and public health leaders need clear, comparable indicators to identify priority communities, align resources, and evaluate whether action is working.

Proposed Approach:

This proposal presents a versioned framework and public-facing dashboard that generates race/ethnicity-stratified Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) views and practical prioritization signals to guide clinical and program decisions. The approach harmonizes definitions, produces consistent state and local indicators, surfaces contextual “driver triads” (co-occurring factors associated with elevated risk), and offers early-warning prioritization flags to support timely outreach and coordination. The emphasis is on interpretability, reproducibility, and annual refresh so that insights remain current and actionable

Expected Outcomes:

Planned dashboard outputs by version are: Version 1.0—state and multi-county maps, race/ethnicity rank lists, and jurisdiction profiles to orient decision-makers; Version 2.0—expanded local profiles and trend views to track changes and distinguish persistent hotspots; Version 3.0—an early-warning panel with flags and a guided “what-if” tool.

Discussion:

We seek feedback from multi-disciplinary health experts on optimizing this tool for real-world impact.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, March). Maternal mortality rates in the United States, 2023. National Center for Health Statistics.

Tikkanen, R., Zephyrin, L., & Baumgartner, J. (2023). Maternal mortality and maternity care in the United States compared to 10 other developed countries. Commonwealth Fund.