Year(s) Funded: 2025-2026
Topic(s): Health Services, Healthcare Access, Hospitals and Clinics, Maternal Health
Project Lead: Julia Interrante
This project will add one year of data to our publicly-available dataset on obstetric care access. This project has several goals:
- To create an annually updated database of obstetric unit closures by state and county, and to make that information publicly available to inform research, policy, and public health decisions on rural maternity care access and rural maternal health.
- To link the closure database with additional data useful for research, public health, clinical care, and policy, and conduct timely analyses to inform decisions.
- To describe national, state, and county-levels changes in hospital-based obstetric care availability.
Ensuring obstetric care access and reducing maternal mortality in rural and underserved areas is a key focus of national, state, and local policies. Providing accurate and updated information on obstetric service availability in rural and urban communities is essential in fulfilling this goal.
This project is part of the Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program (RMHD), which is a partnership between the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center and Mission Analytics Group, Inc. It is funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
Related Publications
- 2010-2024 County-Level Hospital-Based Obstetric Care Status, May 19th, 2026