• California: On Wednesday, actress Olivia Munn revealed she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer last year. Following a normal mammogram, Munn took a genetic test that screened for 90 cancer genes in February 2023. According to Munn, she tested negative for all of the genes, including BRCA. Her sister also tested negative for all 90 genes. However, two months later, Munn was diagnosed with a type of breast cancer known as luminal B. One month later, she had a double mastectomy. "In the past ten months, I have had four surgeries, so many days spent in bed I can't even count and have learned more about cancer, cancer, treatment and hormones than I ever could have imagined," Munn wrote in an Instagram post. In her post, Munn urged women to ask their doctors to determine their breast cancer risk assessment score — a precaution her doctor took that helped catch her cancer early. "The fact that she did saved my life," Munn wrote. (Salam, New York Times, 3/13)
•  Pennsylvania : Over the past two decades, CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) may have overstated the U.S. maternal mortality rate due to flawed data reporting. According to a study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, NCHS' recommendation to add a "pregnancy" checkbox to death certificates in 2003 resulted in an increase in misclassified maternal deaths. In the study, researchers reanalyzed NCHS' data from 1999 to 2002 and 2018 to 2021, excluding the deaths that only ticked the pregnancy checkbox. "We would only consider deaths to be a maternal death if there was a pregnancy-related cause mentioned by the physician who was certifying the death," said K.S. Joseph, an epidemiologist at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the study. "There are several lines in the certificate where a pregnancy-related cause can be mentioned, and if any of those lines mentioned a pregnancy-related cause, we would call it that." Based on the study researchers' analysis, the most recent U.S. maternal mortality rate is actually 10.4 deaths per 100,000 live births — a significant decline from NCHS' report of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births. (Bettelheim, Axios, 3/14; Joseph et al., American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, 3/12; Simmons-Duffin, NPR's "Shots," 3/13; Cirruzzo, Politico Pro, 3/13 [subscription required]; Irwin, The Hill, 3/13)
• Massachusetts: Hospitals in Massachusetts are currently experiencing significant financial distress and capacity issues. According to healthcare executives, the state's entire network of hospitals is nearing a capacity shortage that hasn't been seen since the pandemic. In a push to ease the crisis, industry leaders are urging Gov. Maura Healey (D) and the state legislature to take action to stem the crisis. While hospital officials have acknowledged that money alone won't solve these issues, they have advocated for improved reimbursements from the state's MassHealth system to cover individuals without private insurance. "I don't think you can point to the state nor the feds and say, 'Here's the recipe for them to save us,'" said Michael Lauf, CEO of Cape Cod Healthcare. "This system hasn't been created overnight, nor will we get out of this acute stage overnight." (Chesto, STAT+/Boston Globe, 3/12 [subscription required])

Maternal mortality rates are a growing concern, particularly among Black women. From expanding reimbursement for doulas and midwives to increasing postpartum coverage to embracing technology-based tools, learn how health plans are taking steps to drive better outcomes for pregnant people.