Impacts of Medicaid Expansion Prior to Conception on Pre-pregnancy Health, Pregnancy Health, and Outcomes.

We examined associations between preconception exposure to Medicaid expansion and measures of pre-pregnancy health, pregnancy health, and pregnancy outcomes using a difference-in-differences empirical approach. Increased Medicaid eligibility was not associated with improvements in pre-pregnancy or pregnancy health measures and did not reduce prevalence of adverse birth outcomes (e.g., preterm birth increased by 0.1 percentage points [95% CI: -0.2, 0.3]). Increasing Medicaid eligibility alone may be insufficient to improve pre-pregnancy or pregnancy health and birth outcomes. Preconception programming in combination with attention to other structural determinants of pregnancy health is needed. PMID: 33423053 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Am J Epidemiol - Category: Epidemiology Authors: Tags: Am J Epidemiol Source Type: research