Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait: A community-based approach to addressing preterm births

In response to rapidly rising preterm and late preterm birth rates, the March of Dimes created Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait, a community-based program designed to prevent “preventable” preterm birth. HBWW galvanizes a community by educating about the prevalence of preterm birth, its risk factors and the strategies to prevent it. In order to affect the entire community, it employs partnerships among hospitals, local health departments, professional organizations, funders, and other stakeholders to address a myriad of modifiable risk factors by delivering multiple evidence-based interventions to providers, patients, and the public. In HBWW sites, community health leaders partner to improve systems of care in the community. Like other public health problems, prematurity must be addressed in communities with approaches broader than medical care. March of Dimes collaborated with Johnson and Johnson and the Kentucky Dept. for Public Health to conduct a demonstration HBWW project built on an ecological model designed to work in real world settings where a multitude of factors-not a single intervention-influences outcomes. The program has continued and expanded. Its success in working with communities to reduce preterm birth has provided guidance for the March of Dimes to disseminate HBWW in other states. This session will describe the essential components of the program, share lessons learned from the pilot, and explain the expansion of this effective program.