Transcript Using MAPP for the MCH Community Health Assessment in

Incorporating Preconception Health into
Programming at a Local Health Department:
Taking Steps to Make Change Happen
Cheri Pies, MSW, DrPH
Padmini Parthasarathy, MPH
Family, Maternal and Child Health
Programs
Overview
• Life Course Initiative
• Strategies
• Activities
• Staff survey
• Lessons learned
The Life Course Initiative
• Launched 15-year
initiative in 2005
• Engaging FMCH and
county staff, as well as
community partners
• Improving reproductive
potential
• Paradigm shift
• Changing the health of a
generation
Strategies
• Education through interactive methods
• Carefully planned roll-out of our
initiative
• Bring staff and partners in gradually
• Enable staff to each have their own
“A-ha!” moment
12-Point Plan…
…to close the Black-White gap in birth
outcomes (Lu, et al.)
1. Provide interconception care to
women with prior adverse pregnancy
outcomes
2. Increase access to preconception
care for African American women
Activities to Date
• Series of staff
meetings
• Life Course Fact
Sheet
• Articles in County
Department
publications
Activities to Date, cont.
• Presentations community partners
(initial overview; later in-depth)
• Asked staff strategic questions about
current and future activities
• Worked with Clinic Services on
Interconception Care/Gestational
Diabetes project
The Life Course Game
Staff Survey
• Evaluated staff understanding of Life
Course Perspective
• Gathered ideas from staff about
incorporating the Life Course
Perspective into their work
• Survey sent to 107 FMCH Programs staff
• 68 staff (64%) responded
Survey Results
Are you a manager or nonmanager?
Response Percent
Response Count
Yes
14%
8
No
86%
51
TOTAL
100%
59
In Your Own Words, How Would You
Describe the Life Course Perspective?
• A holistic approach
• A focus on future
generations
• Begins in the womb
• Life Course Perspective
looks at the impact of
social, emotional, and
physical stressors on a
woman’s health across
her lifespan
What are two concepts from the 12-Point
Plan that you think relate to your work?
1. Expand health care access over the life course
(16)
2. Enhance service coordination and systems
integration (15)
3. Support working mothers and families (10)
4. Provide interconception care to women with prior
adverse pregnancy outcomes (9)
5. Improve quality of prenatal care (8)
6. Close the education gap (8)
Have you changed anything about your
public health work as a result of learning
about the Life Course Perspective?
Response Percent
Response Count
Yes
72%
46
No
28%
18
TOTAL
100%
64
How have you incorporated the Life
Course Perspective into your work?
• I remember the importance of other issues
for clients such as lack of transportation
• Encourage women to take care of
themselves
• Recognize and reinforce that health care
providers are partners
• Focus on how we may influence our clients’
ability to improve their health and wellbeing throughout their life span
How have you incorporated the Life
Course Perspective into your work?
• Realizing that change will impact
future generations has been a shift in
thinking
• More aware of the importance of
building youth resiliency
Any comments, questions or concerns
about the Life Course Initiative?
• I hadn’t thought about health in that way
before. It also made me think about the
importance of life experiences and stresses
on future generations and how important it
is to make sure everyone has access to
health care and a method to create a
supportive family network for them and
their families so all can thrive.
Lessons Learned
• Start with staff where they are
• Recognize and acknowledge staff’s
existing work on preconception care
and build on this
• Utilize the imagination and experience
of staff to project where they could go
with future programming
Lessons Learned, cont.
• Lay the groundwork with higher level
staff/management in our organization
about the importance of preconception
health
Making Change Happen
• Staff:
– Think differently
– Act differently
• Financing
What will success look like?