268579 Building community-campus partnerships to prevent infant mortality: Lessons learned from building capacity in four U.S. cities

Monday, October 29, 2012 : 5:15 PM - 5:30 PM

Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA , 1) Health Equity Initiative; 2) CUNY, New York, NY
Isabel Estrada-Portales, PhD, MS , Resource Center, HHS Office of Minority Health, Rockville, MD
Elena Hoeppner, MPH , Health Equity Initiative, New York
Denisse Ormaza , Resource Center, HHS Office of Minority Health, Rockville, MD, MD
Despite progress, infant mortality rates (IMR) continue to be a significant public health problem in the United States. The U.S. ranks 41st among 191 countries in infant mortality rates (WHO, 2011). IMR among non-Hispanic black infants is 2.4 times that for non-Hispanic white infants (US DHHS, 2011). Since IMR is an important indicator of progress toward health equity, the US DHHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) has been developing and implementing a Preconception Peer Educators (PPE) Program. As for other components of the OMH national program A Healthy Baby Begins with You, the PPE Program aims to raise awareness about the disproportionately high infant mortality rates among African-Americans, and to promote preconception health behaviors among women of childbearing age and sexually active men as a key measure to help reduce the risk for infant mortality. To date, the program has trained more than 800 PPEs from colleges and universities across the United States. This presentation focuses on lessons learned from a partnership development and capacity building pilot program implemented in 4 U.S. Cities - Los Angeles, Nashville, Jacksonville, and Charlotte – to encourage campus-community partnerships, and ultimately, to support PPEs community outreach efforts; and to continue to involve local leaders and organizations in infant mortality prevention programming.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Other professions or practice related to public health
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
Discuss lessons learned and key issues in building capacity for partnership development Identify key elements to be considered in developing partnership plans and issue-specific task forces, as it relates to community-campus partnerships Describe key learnings as they apply to the development of programs and partnerships for infant mortality prevention and to encourage the sustainability of all efforts at community level

Keywords: Health Disparities, Community Involvement

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: President and CEO of Health Equity Initiative. Significant experience in reaching vulnerable and underserved populations, health equity programming, maternal and child health, partnership development, capacity building. Three-years experience with the program discussed in the abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.