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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Jennifer Rienks, PhD¹, Virginia Smyly, MPH², Geraldine Oliva, MD, MPH¹, Judith Belfiori, MPH, MA¹, and Sandra Johnson, BS³. (1) Family Health Outcomes Project, Family and Community Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 365, San Francisco, CA 94118, 415-476-5283, belfiorij@fcm.uscf.edu, (2) Health Promotion and Prevention, Department of Public Health, 101 Grove Street, San Francisco, CA 94102, (3) Health Promotion, San Francisco Department of Public Health, 30 Van Ness #2300, San Francisco, CA 94102

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention REACH 2010 Initiative funded the San Francisco-based SevenPrinciples for African American Infant Survival and Community Unity to eliminate the disparity between San Francisco's African-American and White infant mortality rates and to improve the health of African American infants, their families and communities. The project values and strategies are derived from Dr. Karenda's seven principles of Kwanza, which include unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.

To accomplish its goals, the SevenPrinciples Project utilized a 4-pronged approach that involves a social marketing based community awareness campaign, conducting cultural competency trainings and undoing racism workshops for medical and social service providers working with African Americans to address the impact of racism on health and health care delivery, establishing community actions teams (CATS) to address what are believed to be the underlying causes of these disparities (i.e. violence, lack of community unity, inadequate access to health food), and creating community connections and social support through Dinner and a Movie events. The San Francisco Department of Public Health works to design and implement the interventions while the Family Health Outcomes Project at the University of California conducts the process and outcomes evaluations for the interventions.

This presentation will describe interventions used by the SevenPrinciples Project and report on the significant outcomes to date for each of the interventions. The importance and challenges of implementing and evaluating these types of interventions will also be discussed, as well as the lessons learned.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to
• describe the importance of targeting the social determinant of health in addressing health disparities,
• the challenges of and lessoned learned from implementing community-based capacity building interventions, and
• the challenges and lessons learned form evaluating such interventions.

Keywords: Infant Mortality, Community Programs

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation