Transportation

Decades of discrimination have made St. Louis a highly segregated region, leaving many Black families isolated in areas of concentrated poverty that lack resources, like good paying jobs, education, health care and healthy food that families need to thrive. Safe, reliable, affordable and efficient public transportation in St. Louis is a key to expanding opportunity for all St. Louisans – and reducing infant mortality rates in our region.

One of the biggest barriers Black families face in having a healthy pregnancy and family is access to reliable transportation. This includes public transportation as well as non-emergency medical transportation provided through Medicaid.  

Why Transportation Is Important

• Access to Health Care: Unreliable transportation leads to a lack of regular medical care and missed appointments. In our region, more than 20 percent of households don’t own a car, and over one-third of our residents do not live near a public transit stop.
• Access to Living-Wage Jobs: Families without reliable transportation have fewer opportunities to find and keep jobs that supply a living wage. In fact, only one in four jobs in the St. Louis region are reachable by a 90-minute public transit trip. Black families are most impacted by long commutes as they are five times less likely to have access to a car and represent 80 percent of passengers on all public transportation in St. Louis.
• Access to Healthy Food: Many of the St. Louis zip codes with the highest rates of infant mortality are in neighborhoods considered food deserts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Without affordable, reliable transportation, mothers who live in those neighborhoods can’t get to grocery stores that sell affordable, fresh and healthy food.
• Stress Level: Women who experience high levels of stress during pregnancy have 25-60 percent higher risk for preterm delivery. The lack of reliable transportation compounds the stress when they endure long commutes to jobs and doctor appointments, and worry about missing appointments because of unreliable public transportation and Medicaid ride schedules.

What FLOURISH is Doing to Make a Difference

FLOURISH has partnered with managed care companies, health leaders, public transit agencies and community members to improve families’ access to reliable transportation for doctor appointments:

• Facilitated collaboration between Medicaid Managed Care companies to standardize transportation services, making it easier for families to book a ride. Learn more about accessing medical transportation services.
• Created a Medicaid Riders’ Bill of Rights with fundamental standards for managed care plans and MO HealthNet to follow when providing transportation.
• Partnered with three health systems and the city health department and received a National BUILD Health Challenge grant to analyze health care transportation needs and improve access for families.
• Collecting feedback about patients’ experiences with medical transportation services via an online survey, so we can help identify and address specific issues they are facing.

Improving Black families’ access to transportation will help them access the vital services they need to raise a healthy baby. If you have ideas that can help FLOURISH achieve its goals to improve transportation access, contact us.