545 - Eligibility for, utilization of, and interest in state paid parental leave during the newborn period

 

Objective:

We aimed to understand the eligibility for, uptake of, and interest in a paid state parental leave policy among a historically disenfranchised population.

Design/Methods:

We undertook a systematic needs assessment for paid parental leave resources in the pediatric clinic at Boston Medical Center, the largest safety net hospital in New England using electronic health record data from April-December 2022. During this time, Patient Navigators (PN; a community health worker role) met with families at their newborn visit and screened families for eligibility for, uptake of and interest in paid family leave and documented this information in the electronic health record. We calculated descriptive statistics for demographic variables and for eligibility for, uptake of, and interest in a paid state parental leave policy. We also reviewed clinical notes from a subset of families to assess barriers to enrollment.

Results: A total of 177 families were included in our needs assessment. Most families identified as Non-Hispanic Black (42%) or Hispanic/Latino (15%) and had Medicaid insurance (91%); almost half (48%) spoke a language other than English (Table 1). 37% of families were eligible for paid leave; of those eligible (n=65), 32% of were enrolled, and of those not enrolled, 82% were interested in assistance enrolling (Table 2). The most common barriers were awareness, application navigation, and language (Table 3).

Conclusion(s): Most families were not eligible for paid leave. Of those who were eligible, most had not enrolled in the program but were interested in enrolling. Identified barriers emphasized the need for assistance navigating the system. Future work should focus on understanding whether assisting with enrollment during prenatal or well-child visits might reduce a barrier to uptake of a valuable cash benefit that is known to impact health equity.