The FCC has announced that it added maternal health data to its Mapping Broadband Health in America platform. The FCC said that this addition may help stakeholders such as policymakers, public health experts, and other researchers to study the intersection between broadband and maternal health.
President Biden recently signed into law the Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act that directed the FCC to work with the CDC to include this data on the Mapping Broadband Health in America Platform. The U.S. has increasing material mortality and severe maternal morbidity rates and is the only developed country to see these rates increasing. The CDC reports that many maternal deaths and complications are preventable, and the crisis disproportionately affects Non-Hispanic Black and American Indian/Alaska Native pregnant women. Moreover, without access to appropriate health care providers, pregnant women in rural areas are 60% more likely to die than pregnant women in the non-rural areas.
