Where are the Data to Drive Policy Changes for Preconception Health and Health Care?

Abstract

Improving preconception health is recognized as being crucial to improving reproductive health outcomes for women and infants. At the same time, there is increasing pressure on public health and clinical medicine programs to have evidence that documents positive health impact for continued support for program implementation and policy change. In the field of preconception health and health care, there is a growing body of evidence to support the implementation of public health programs and clinical practice. One current challenge is the unavailability of a comprehensive surveillance system providing data to demonstrate the need for such programs and to monitor the impact of programs and services. There is no single source of data or evidence for policy and financing support for preconception care; however, there are a number of related data resources that can be used to inform and support such programs. We describe national and state-level data sources from which data relevant to preconception health and health care can be extracted as well as steps that can be taken to improve the quantity and quality of preconception health data.