The Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan, developed by the statewide Illinois Maternal Health Task Force, served as a call to action to address the stark inequities in maternal, infant, and family health outcomes in Illinois. The Strategic Plan was built on multiple prior efforts to understand and explicate the causes of these inequities and was the work of diverse entities and individuals.
The first version of the Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan was developed by the Illinois Maternal Health Task Force during March-October 2020 and published online in February 2021. The Strategic Plan was a living document that guided, supported, and/or strengthened the efforts of multiple organizations, groups, and individuals to reverse the inequities in maternal, infant, and family health outcomes. The Strategic Plan transformed as strategies were adopted, enacted, tested, and evaluated.
The Strategic Plan had five iterations, each of which can be downloaded below:
- Version 1: Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan (2021), published in February 2021.
- Version 2: Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan (2022), published in April 2022 and detailed progress made during the first two years of implementation (2020-2021).
- Version 3: Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan (2023), published in January 2023 and reflected progress made during the first three years of implementation (2020-2022).
- Version 4: Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan (2024), published in November 2023, reflected work during the first four years of implementation (2020-2023).
- Version 5: Illinois Maternal Health Strategic Plan (2024), published in June 2024, showed the evolution of the 14 strategies from 2021-2024, the data and recommendations on which each strategy is based, including connections to the 2021 Illinois Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report and the White House Maternal Health Blueprint, and the strategies’ activities, products, and deliverables.