Bill > HR6238

This bill, known as the NIH Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone Act or the NIH IMPROVE Act, establishes the IMPROVE Initiative within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The initiative's primary goal is to improve maternal health outcomes by advancing research to reduce preventable causes of maternal mortality (death) and severe maternal morbidity (serious health problems during pregnancy or childbirth), as well as to decrease health disparities affecting pregnant and postpartum women, particularly in populations with disproportionately high rates of these issues. The program will take an integrated approach to understand the biological, behavioral, and other factors influencing maternal health, aiming to build an evidence base for better outcomes across the United States, and will involve implementing and evaluating community-based interventions for disproportionately affected women while identifying risk factors and their underlying biological mechanisms. The Director of the NIH is authorized to award grants and enter into agreements to carry out this initiative, with $63,400,000 authorized for each fiscal year from 2026 through 2030.