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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Maurine Jones, PhD¹, Linda Contreras, MPH¹, and Arrie Battle². (1) Florida State University, Center for Health Equity, 355 B North Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301, 850 577-1421, maurinejones@earthlink.net, (2) FSU, Center for Health Equity, 215 West Jefferson Street, Quincy, FL 32351

A four year Federal Healthy Start grant, funded through Health Resources and Services Administration, was awarded to the FSU Center for Health Equity to implement strategies focused on eliminating racial disparities in infant mortality in Gadsden County. The interventions target African American pregnant women and mothers of children up to age two and include outreach, case management, and education.

Four peer health advocates (PHAs) were employed initially to facilitate peer support and education groups. They also conducted educational outreach and recruited women into the peer support groups. In addition, the PHAs conducted case findings for the local Florida Healthy Start case management program.

Pre post testing of knowledge attitudes and behavior indicate that the education component of this program model was successful with a number of significant improvements in knowledge of risk factors associated with poor birth and health outcomes as well as changes in behaviors particularly related to douching and maternal infection.

An unanticipated side affect of the support groups was the level of trust that built between the women and their group facilitators. Women began to come up after groups and request additional assistance with issues they were dealing with including domestic violence, housing, legal services and other problems typically addressed in the context of case management. The role of the PHAs changed as a result and the project was forced to address the needs of the consumers and PHAs as extenders of case management.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the emerging role of peer health advocates in education and case management
• Apply lessons learned in models for peer health advocacy
• Develop a peer health advocay framework for education and peer support groups

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation