{"id":288063,"date":"2026-09-17T10:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288063\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T10:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:52:17","slug":"penn-ldi-study-analyzes-maternal-health-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288063\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn LDI study analyzes maternal health startups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fellows at Penn\u2019s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics recently investigated the role of venture capital-backed startups in improving maternal healthcare.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The team, led by LDI postdoctoral fellow Madeline Perry, <a href=\"https:\/\/ldi.upenn.edu\/our-work\/research-updates\/can-venture-capital-help-solve-americas-maternal-health-crisis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">analyzed<\/a> 172 pregnancy care-focused startups that raised almost $1 billion in capital over an eight-year period. In an interview, Perry discussed the project\u2019s contribution to the study of startups in the maternal healthcare space.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Perry\u2019s interest in maternal health startups stemmed from a desire to find \u201cinnovative solutions to problems\u201d in healthcare.\u00a0People who fall into different medical and social needs categories might need different types of healthcare and support throughout the pregnancy process, she added.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has \u201cone of the highest rates of maternal mortality\u201d relative to other high-income countries, according to Perry. Within the U.S., there are additional \u201cbig disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality,\u201d\u00a0including that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/womens-health\/features\/maternal-mortality.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">rate<\/a> of maternal mortality for Black women is three times that of white women in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Many startups \u201care trying to solve problems that we have in healthcare in ways that are not even just thinking outside of the box, but kind of ignoring the box completely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-serif\">Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>  <a href=\"https:\/\/thedp.us2.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=a96885e3aa3f8131c872ee329&amp;id=370b4800ba\" class=\"newsletter-btn font-sans no-underline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"> Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n<p>These companies are particularly suited to addressing gaps in maternal healthcare offerings because they offer \u201cin-between care\u201d which could \u201cpotentially address some issues that we know exist in the pregnancy space,\u201d\u00a0she added.<\/p>\n<p>Perry characterized these startups as offering \u201cvirtual and hybrid wraparound care,\u201d which does not replace visits to a medical professional, but supplements them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She noted, however, that startups alone cannot address all issues with American maternal health.<\/p>\n<p>For example, less than half of the startups the team considered accepted insurance, and only 34% accepted Medicaid, according to the LDI release.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Perry explained that in order for a startup to be covered by insurance, they must come to an agreement with each individual provider.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s something that they really have to invest in doing,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Health inequality poses an additional challenge that startups alone will not be able to address, Perry added, saying that \u201ca lot of systems-level changes\u201d need to be made to address these disparities.<\/p>\n<p>Looking forward, she expressed hope that she will see more research investigating startups\u2019 patient outcomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s important that we know which startups are actually improving outcomes, because those are the ones that we really need to be expanding access to,\u201d Perry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fellows at Penn\u2019s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics recently investigated the role of venture capital-backed startups in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-288063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}