Building Maternal Health Capacity: Impact of the Maternal Health Learning and Innovation Center

To address the maternal health crisis, Health Resources and Services Administration funded the Maternal Health Learning and Innovation Center (MHLIC) in 2019 to provide capacity-building assistance (CBA) to maternal health practitioners nationally. To measure whether and how MHLIC's capacity-building efforts increased maternal health practitioners' confidence in their team's capacity to address maternal health. Mixed methods evaluation, including a retrospective post-test survey and semi-structured focus group interview among 9 state Maternal Health Innovation (MHI) awardee teams funded for 5 years. MHLIC served 9 state MHI teams initially, growing to 35 states nationally by 2024. From May-June 2024, 23 staff from 9 teams participated in the survey and these same staff and other teammates (n = 32) participated in a focus group interview. MHLIC's CBA is multi-pronged, offering learning opportunities to help awardees gain and strengthen the skills, knowledge, and tools they need to implement innovations that reduce severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Learning opportunities included coaching, technical assistance, tailored consultation, training, peer learning, learning institutes, and national symposia. The survey outcome was confidence in their team's ability to address 22 maternal health, engagement, and policy items before and after engaging with MHLIC. The focus group's main outcomes were evidence of improved maternal health capacity and the contribution of MHLIC's CBA. There were statistically significant moderate increases in teams' reported confidence on every item from before to after engaging with MHLIC. All changes were roughly 0.5 points or higher on the 4-point scale. Interview evidence of improved capacity with support from MHLIC included equity, community engagement, implicit bias, data use and dissemination, strategic planning, and sustainability. MHLIC's CBA increased teams' maternal health capacity, enabling teams to achieve their MHI goals while laying a foundation for advancing maternal health beyond the scope of the program.