Selling maternal child heatlh to small community businesses

Atlantic City New Jersey is a small city best known for its well lit casinos. A darker side of the city is its black infant mortality rate and the fact that only half of pregnant women get adequate prenatal care. The city has no centralized business district and the residents shop in small stores and corner groceries. The Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, a program of the Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative, a licensed Maternal Child Health Consortium, targeted small businesses as partners in their efforts to improve birth outcomes. Materials were developed to describe the issues and give businesses opportunities to participate by: donating money, goods or services; displaying posters and brochures; becoming members of the Coalition and displaying posters to highlight their membership; or sponsoring a health focused community event.

The Coalition identified three messages that they wanted delivered to women through the posters and brochures 1)get prenatal care and get it early 2)eat a nutritious diet and register for WIC 3)do not use alcohol, drugs or cigarettes during pregnancy.

Cold calls were made to small stores and businesses such as nail salons, barber shops and variety stores by teams of staff and Coalition members and letters were sent to businesses such as attorneys' offices, medical providers and community service agencies with sample materials and response form. Incentives with the HMHB logo were given to any business that agreed to participate. The presenter will share the challenges and benefits of this creative and collaborative outreach effort.