141st APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

294442
Prematurity on the nation's health agenda


Tuesday, November 5, 2013 : 2:30 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.

Edward McCabe, MD, PhD, Office of Medicine and Health Promotion, March of Dimes, White Plains, NY
     
The March of Dimes initiated the Prematurity Campaign in 2003 as a multi-pronged, multi-strategy campaign in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. In 2013 the partnership expanded to include the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs, and National Association of County and City Health Officials.

In addition to promoting public awareness, advocating for research funds and expanded access to care, and supporting affected families, the Prematurity Campaign initiated interventions to prevent preventable preterm births. In 2012 ASTHO joined with the March of Dimes to ask state health officers to pledge to reduce preterm birth rates by 8 percent by 2014. Officials in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia have signed the pledge and mobilized to reduce preterm birth.

Another intervention is the development of the quality improvement toolkit, Elimination of Non-medically Indicated (Elective) Deliveries Before 39 Weeks Gestational Age, including implementation guidance in clinical settings, data collection, clinician and patient education. Although ACOG issued guidelines recommending against non-medically indicated (elective) deliveries prior to 39 weeks gestation, elective preterm deliveries had been rising. The March of Dimes, the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, and the California Department of Public Health, Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health Division collaborated to develop and disseminate the toolkit to address this problem.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Advocacy for health and health education
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe the key elements of the challenge issued by Association of State and Territorial Health Officials to reduce preterm births and some of the activities of this program Describe the key elements of the quality improvement toolkit, Elimination of Non-medically Indicated (Elective) Deliveries Before 39 Weeks Gestational Age, and the resources available to support implementation

Keyword(s): Maternal and Child Health, Pregnancy Outcomes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Edward McCabe is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, March of Dimes' Office of Medicine and Health Promotion. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Inaugural Mattel Executive Endowed Chair of Pediatrics Emeritus at UCLA and Inaugural Physician-in-Chief Emeritus of Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He earned his M.D./Ph.D. from University of Southern California.
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.

Back to: 4328.0: Addressing the Problem of Prematurty: Global, National, and Local Perspectives