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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Tonya Gorham, MSW¹, Elena Halpert-Schilt¹, Margaret Dunkle, Senior Fellow², Janice I. French, CNM, MS¹, and Carolina Reyes, MD¹. (1) Los Angeles Best Babies Network, 350 S. Bixel Street, Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90017, 213-250-7273, tgorham@labestbabies.org, (2) Center for Health Services Research & Policy, George Washington University, 2195 Beverly Glen Place, Los Angeles, CA 90077

Background: LA Best Babies Network is the coordinating arm of the Healthy Births Initiative in LA County and works with community stakeholders to identify and institutionalize policies and programs necessary to create sustainable improvements in the health and well-being of women and infants. The Network coordinates the activities of 8 geographically based Healthy Births Learning Collaboratives (HBLCs). HBLCs provide community-directed meetings that promote knowledge sharing, capacity building, collaborative planning and action among stakeholders interested in improving pregnancy and birth outcomes in LA County. To maximize the efforts of all the HBLCs, the Network brought them together for the Healthy Births through Healthy Communities Town Hall: A Call to Action with the goals of sharing community wisdom on issues impacting birth outcomes, building action plans to address those issues and creating a community-defined set of perinatal policy priorities.

Method: Staff presented at HBLC meetings on Policy Change: Thinking Outside the Box prior to the event to define types of policy and the community's role in change. At the Town Hall the policy toolbox was used as part of a participatory activity in which geographically based groups identified priority issues for their areas as well as policy changes and arenas of action to address the issues.

Results: 164 participants representing 113 organizations identified policy priorities which were taken forward to health and policy leaders at the Perinatal Summit: Healthy Births Through Healthy Communities who committed to strategic action. This process brought community and health leaders together for a unified commitment to action.

Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to

• Apply community participatory processes to policy planning and development

Keywords: Community, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered