141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

294461
Healthy babies are worth the wait: Community program

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 3:10 PM - 3:30 PM

Judith S. Gooding , Chapter Programs, March of Dimes, White Plains, NY
March of Dimes developed the Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait (HBWW) community program with the goal of preventing preterm birth. The demonstration project in Kentucky indicated declines in preterm birth in the intervention sites, and HBWW expanded in Kentucky and to New Jersey and Texas.

Integrating primary care and public health is required to address the difficult problems facing the public's health. The HBWW program facilitates partnerships among hospital clinicians, public health professionals, and community organizations that implement perinatal interventions and conduct community education on preterm birth. The program engages state and local partners in planning and implementation to deliver prenatal care services more effectively. Each site convenes an implementation team which conducts a rigorous community needs assessment. Clinicians and community service providers identify gaps in service and collaborate to improve systems of care. To address modifiable risk factors, the HBWW program delivers evidence-based interventions to providers, patients and the public.

The HBWW Community Program is a collaborative model involving clinical and public health professionals and community outreach in integrated efforts to reduce preterm birth. Fifteen collaborative sites have set 2014 goals for preterm birth reduction and are implementing proven interventions to meet those goals. AMCHP presented a Promising Practice award to the HBWW program in 2012, recognizing it as a model of effective hospital, public health and community collaboration. Three states conducting the program are informing implementation as March of Dimes expands this program to four additional states in 2014.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Public health administration or related administration

Learning Objectives:
Demonstrate how March of Dimes’ Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Community Program integrates public health and clinical practice to reduce preterm birth. Describe how the Community Program convenes and engages public and clinical health leaders with community members to change patient and professional knowledge and behaviors regarding risk reduction related to preterm birth.

Keywords: Maternal and Child Health, Infant Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Judith Gooding serves the March of Dimes as Vice President, Signature Programs in the Chapter Program Support Department. She is responsible for March of Dimes NICU Family Support® and Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait®, both signature programs of the Foundation. Before becoming Vice President, she was National Director of NICU Initiatives and Chapter Program Strategy. From 1996 through 1999, she was National Director of the Folic Acid Campaign at the March of Dimes.
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.