Bill
S 4187
The act funds expanded, diverse community engagement in maternal mortality reviews and enhances data collection to address disparities in maternal health outcomes.
Date introduced: March 25, 2026
Sponsor: Senator Marianne Smith (with Cory Booker and Tina Smith as co-sponsors)
Committee: Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Short title: Data to Save Moms Act
Purpose and overall intent
- The bill aims to strengthen maternal health data collection, improve quality measures related to maternity care, and promote representative community engagement in maternal mortality reviews. It also includes targeted studies and grant programs to address disparities in maternal health outcomes, particularly for American Indian/Alaska Native individuals and other racial/ethnic minority groups.
Key provisions and changes
1) Enhanced funding for representative community engagement in Maternal Mortality Review (MMR) Committees
- Adds a new grant program under Section 317K(d) to promote representative community engagement in MMR committees at the state, tribal, and urban Indian organization levels.
- Goals of grants:
- Diversify MMR committee membership by including community members who reflect races/ethnicities and lived experiences related to maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity.
- Fund efforts to reduce barriers to participation (training, transportation, compensation, and other supports).
- Support outreach to communities to gather input, with emphasis on women from racial/ethnic minority groups.
- Produce public reports evaluating pregnancy-related and pregnancy-associated deaths and assess the impact of funding on diversity and community engagement.
- Technical assistance and a $10 million annual authorization for fiscal years 2027–2031.
- A minimum of $1.5 million per year must be reserved for grants to Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, or Urban Indian organizations.
2) Data collection and review enhancements
- Expands the data collection review scope to include:
- Severe maternal morbidity cases.
- Deaths during pregnancy or up to 1 year post-pregnancy from suicide, overdose, or other mental health/substance use-related causes attributed to pregnancy or childbirth.
- Inclusion of nonclinical factors via consultation with community-based organizations representing pregnant/postpartum individuals, especially from groups with higher mortality/morbidity rates.
- Requires consideration of social determinants and nonclinical factors in causes of death, and ensures multidisciplinary/diverse MMR committee membership and training on bias/racism.
3) Review of maternal health data processes and quality measures (Sec. 4)
- The Secretary of Health and Human Services (through CMS and AHRQ) must consult stakeholders to:
- Review current maternal health data collection processes and quality measures.
- Recommend improvements, including:
- Timeliness and updates to death certificates when pregnancy-related deaths are identified.
- Integration of electronic health record data (race/ethnicity, language, SES, geography, insurance, etc.).
- Public reporting of maternal health data with demographic stratification.
- Barriers to correlating maternal outcomes with demographic data.
- Assess current quality measures and their effectiveness, including alignment with international measures and patient-experience-informed measures.
- Identify funding needs and potential new authorities for MMR committees to access records across agencies and to involve non-MMR experts for reviews of specific populations (e.g., veterans, incarcerated individuals).
- Requires a Congress-facing report within 1 year of enactment detailing findings and recommendations.
- Authorized appropriations for this section: for fiscal years 2027–2030 (amounts not specified in the excerpt).
4) Study on maternal health among American Indian and Alaska Native individuals (Sec. 5)
- Requires a contracted study within 90 days post-enactment with an independent organization or Tribal Epidemiology Center to examine maternal mortality/morbidity in AI/AN populations.
- A final report to Congress within 3 years with policy/practice recommendations.
- Study design must include community listening, variations by care setting (IHS facilities, tribal programs, urban Indian programs, and non-IHS facilities), data coordination with other HHS programs, and addressing misclassification and cultural considerations.
- Authorization of appropriations: $2 million annually for 2027–2029.
5) Grants to minority-serving institutions to study maternal health (Sec. 6)
- Establishes a grant program for minority-serving institutions to study aspects of maternal health disparities, including:
- Listening to stories from minority pregnant/postpartum individuals and workers.
- Investigating causes of lower maternal mortality rates in some groups (e.g., potential misclassification for Hispanic individuals).
- Assessing disparities among Hispanic subgroups and improving lactation education and workforce diversity.
- Technical assistance and ongoing reporting requirements for grant recipients.
- Authorization of appropriations: $10 million annually for 2027–2031.
Definitions (Sec. 7)
- Clarifies terms: maternity care provider, perinatal health worker, postpartum, pregnancy-associated death, pregnancy-related death, racial/ethnic minority group, severe maternal morbidity, and social determinants of maternal health.
Funding and timelines (highlights)
- Programmatic funding authorized (subject to appropriations) for:
- Representative community engagement grants: at least $10 million per year (FY 2027–2031), plus reserved funds for tribal/Urban Indian organizations.
- Maternal health data/data quality review activities: appropriations needed (not fixed in the text; annual report to Congress on funding adequacy).
- AI/AN maternal health study: $2 million per year (FY 2027–2029).
- Minority-serving institutions grants: $10 million per year (FY 2027–2031).
- Reporting requirements:
- Departmental reports within 1 year on data collection/process reviews and quality measures.
- Final study report on AI/AN maternal health within 3 years of enactment.
- Ongoing annual evaluation reports of grant programs under Sec. 6.
Impacts and who is affected
- Pregnant and postpartum individuals, especially those from racial/ethnic minority groups, will benefit from more representative MMR processes and improved data transparency.
- State, tribal, and urban Indian organizations operating maternal mortality review committees will see new grant opportunities and technical assistance to diversify membership and enhance community engagement.
- Hospitals, birth centers, and maternity care providers will be subject to enhanced quality measures and data reporting requirements, including stratified demographic data.
- AI/AN communities will receive targeted study and reporting efforts to address unique health determinants and service delivery challenges.
- Minority-serving institutions and researchers will have funding streams to study maternal health disparities and train a more diverse health workforce.
Overall, the Data to Save Moms Act seeks to improve data quality, increase racial/ethnic representation and community engagement in maternal health reviews, and fund targeted research to reduce disparities in maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity.
Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.
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