Discussion: Planning for Community Health Outreach to Improve Maternal Health
The vision and mission to improve maternal and infant health through better prenatal care and encouraging smoking cessation will require a coalition between healthcare and community leaders, spiritual leaders, and local social workers and counselors, partnerships between hospitals and community-based organizations, ensuring that individuals are supported prenatally, throughout pregnancy, and in their first year postpartum. (1). The mission of the organization must be holistic, and provide constant and ongoing support for what is a lifestyle change, not a singular event.
It is a vision founded upon a holistic view of health and wellness, which circumvents the need for more expensive secondary and tertiary care. It is also critical to accumulate data on a regular basis, to ensure that funds are appropriately channeled in the right directions. There must be mechanisms for both providers and recipients alike to offer information to ensure that the care is culturally responsive as well as medically necessary. This is especially important when monitoring what specific groups may have higher rates of smoking and poorer health outcomes antenatally (2). Determining how and why such inequalities are perpetrated in the community is a vital component in stopping them. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:1314, NIV)
Clinics should be local to ensure that residents do not have to travel far distances, and ideally, providers should have experience within the community, to tailor care and advice as needed. Potential financial partners include healthcare organizations and businesses affiliated with healthcare, such as pharmaceutical and counseling institutions that can provide assistance with tools to quit smoking, or with infant care such as formula. Assistants for healthcare providers and social workers may be drawn from local colleges in the form of individuals finishing their degrees and seeking out volunteer experiences.
Bibliography
1. Dwyer, M. & Allen, K. Community partnerships are critical to improving maternal, infant health. Pew. January 4, 2022. Accessed June 28, 2022.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2022/01/04/community-partnerships-are-critical-to-improving-maternal-infant-health
2. Black maternal health: Reducing inequities through community collaboration. Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Accessed June 28, 2022.
http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Publications/black-maternal-health-reducing-inequities-through-community-collaboration.aspx
