307319
Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait® Community Program: A multi-level intervention to reduce racial disparities in preterm birth in Newark, New Jersey
March of Dimes Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Community Program reported a 12% decline in preterm birth in intervention sites in Kentucky between 2007 and 2010. Launching the program in Newark in 2012, March of Dimes and partner Johnson & Johnson applied the model to reduce the black-white disparity in preterm birth. African-American women are more than twice as likely as white women to have a preterm birth.
Methods
March of Dimes conducted focus groups to learn what African-American women in the community know about preterm birth and to solicit their ideas for successful outreach. We convened a community Advisory Board and collaborated with community agencies to create materials and conduct outreach. Partners developed a Disparities Reduction plan based on M. Lu et al.’s 12-Point Plan to Close the Black-White Gap in Birth Outcomes: a Lifecourse Approach.
Results
With our partners we implemented interventions based on local needs: for example, CenteringPregnancy®, patient navigation, a web-based community resource guide, targeted health education tools, and policy advocacy. The rate of preterm birth in the first year of the program, 2012, was 11.7% which shows substantial progress toward the goal of an 8% reduction from the 2011 rate (12.1%). This is consistent with a positive impact of HBWW; however, more detailed analysis and more years of data are needed to provide further evidence.
Conclusions
Using the Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait framework, a community of public health and clinical providers can successfully target and address disparities in preterm birth.
Learning Areas:
Assessment of individual and community needs for health educationDiversity and culture
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Program planning
Provision of health care to the public
Learning Objectives:
Design a plan to apply individual, provider, hospital/clinic and community-level strategies for reducing preterm birth disparities among African-American women as in the Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Community Program.
Describe the development of materials designed to educate African-American women who are at a disproportionate risk for preterm birth.
Analyze the application of M. Lu et al.’s “12-Point Plan to Close the White-Black Gap in Birth Outcomes: a Lifecourse Approach” to the Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Community Program to reduce disparities in preterm birth in Newark.
Keyword(s): Maternal and Child Health, Community Health Programs
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the national director of the Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait Community Program, a signature program of March of Dimes, for 3 years and have worked for March of Dimes for 10 years. I have been and remain directly involved with the implementation and evaluation of the Newark program.
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.