Rapid Response Obstetric Care Data Access

The purpose of this project was to produce rapid response descriptive analyses at the request of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy regarding obstetric services at rural hospitals and maternity care in rural communities. This project informed policy to support access to maternity care, and included the creation of a publicly available, downloadable comma-separated values (CSV) format dataset on availability of hospital-based obstetric care, by county, 2010-2023.

Publications

• 2010-2022 County-Level Hospital-Based Obstetric Care Status
  Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program, University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 07/2025
  This data resource is a county-level dataset containing the county FIPS code, state, and an indicator of whether each United States county had hospital-based obstetrics care in each year, 2010-2022. It is available for download as an XLS file.
• Availability of Hospital-Based Obstetric Services in the United States by County, 2010–2023: A State-by-State Report
  Chartbook
  Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program, University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center
  Date: 01/2026
  The purpose of this report is to provide timely national, state, and county-specific information on changes in obstetric care access. The report includes a national overview of hospital-based obstetric services access by county, followed by county-level reports for every U.S. state.