American Heart Association volunteer expert, Karen Joynt Maddox, M.D., MPH, assistant professor, Washington University School of Medicine, Associate Program Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Cardiovascular Fellowship Program, Co-Director, Center for Health Economics and Policy, Institute for Public Health at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. Offering perspective on AHA Scientific Sessions 2020 Presentation 209 copyright American Heart Association 2020 "One other issue that we have to talk about when we're thinking about urban-rural disparities and racial disparities and outcomes is thinking about coverage. And we know that there are a number of states in the US that have not yet expanded Medicaid, and in those states, we know that birth outcomes are worse and we know that expanding Medicaid has been associated with both improvement in those outcomes and narrowing inequities between races in birth outcomes and maternal outcomes. So this is one very concrete way that states could work to improve the health of the women living in their borders, and certainly depoliticizing Medicaid expansion and working toward thinking about it. It is a real way to improve health, public health, personal health, maternal health, child health, I think is one really crucial way to start to combat some of these inequities and to improve outcomes for moms and babies."