Estimating the Value of Two Approaches to Promoting Maternal Health

Social Finance partnered with the Burke Foundation to illustrate cost savings associated with the results of funding maternal health programs. The work focused on two areas: 

• Doulas: trained professionals who provide emotional, physical, and informational support to families from pregnancy through postnatal to foster better health and well-being. Approaches include community-based and hospital-based doula programs. 

• CenteringPregnancy™: a group prenatal care approach that brings together 8-12 pregnant women and their primary care providers for facilitated discussions, health assessments, and education. 

In a three-month engagement, Social Finance supported the Burke Foundation to update existing dashboards for three of its grantees to include high-level cost-benefit analyses. We also found evidence that doula care and CenteringPregnancy improve maternal health, which translates to cost savings over the period examined. 

Goals

• Understand the health outcomes of mothers who receive care from doulas or participate in CenteringPregnancy 

• Determine how to effectively communicate the value of these programs to policymakers, funders, and the healthcare system 

• Conduct streamlined cost-benefit analyses for the Burke Foundation to illustrate the impact of doula care and CenteringPregnancy 

The Work

Social Finance supported the Burke Foundation in better understanding the health-related outcomes among mothers who receive doula care or participate in CenteringPregnancy. We refined three dashboards to highlight the cost savings associated with these approaches. This work included: 

• Evidence Scan: Reviewed the academic literature on doula care and CenteringPregnancy and summarized findings to inform metric selection 

• Stakeholder Interviews: Interviewed medical professionals, academics, and insurance executives to better understand how stakeholders value these maternal health programs and hear their perspectives on how best to expand these programs 

• Outcome Recommendations: Prioritized key metrics (rate of breastfeeding, low-risk cesarean birth, preterm birth) to include in the cost-benefit analyses, building on findings from the evidence scan and stakeholder interviews  

• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Created streamlined cost-benefit analyses for the Burke Foundation that illustrate the cost savings of funding these maternal health programs and allow for analytical flexibility in comparison groups, funding amounts, and time periods 

• Grantee Dashboards: Revised existing grantee dashboards to highlight the cost savings of these maternal health programs 

Partners

• The Burke Foundation funded and partnered with Social Finance on this work.