Black Infant Health

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is utilizing a street-based outreach strategy in Prenatal Care Outreach (PCO) for their Black Infant Health Program. Throughout enrollment in the program, clients receive positive support, continuous encouragement, home visits, referrals to family supportive services, health education, and several invitations to attend activities that celebrate good health in a cultural context. Along with the outreach intervention, some clients also enroll in Social Support and Empowerment (SSE). In this classroom-style intervention, clients attend eight class sessions that are designed to increase self-awareness and self-esteem via facilitated group discussions, peer support, and personal skills building. The Social Support and Empowerment model was developed to take into account the fact that lack of information alone is not the major reason for poor pregnancy outcomes. SSE works because it addresses social factors, provides a framework to teach specific skills, and the classes tend to increase a clients' support network.

Lack of standard implementation across the state made it difficult to prove effectiveness. The State BIH Program revised the model in 2010, drawing from promising practices. The City of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services and the City of Pasadena Public Health Department started implementing the revised BIH Program model in July 2011. Due to the size and number of BIH provider agencies, Los Angeles County DPH has a longer timeline for implementation.

The revised BIH model serves pregnant and parenting African American women through group intervention, as well as complementary case management to improve the health and social conditions for them and their families. The group intervention has 20 sessions: 10 prenatally and 10 postpartum. They are designed to empower and support African American women by providing information and skills in a culturally relevant and affirming manner. This strength-based intervention will access and enhance the knowledge and skills that BIH clients possess as they enter the group. The sessions offer engaging activities from a women's health perspective that will explore pregnancy-related (prenatal group sessions) and newborn parent-related (postpartum group sessions) topics, as well as personal empowerment skills. Participation in the group process will help moms create a life plan for the future, which will ultimately improve women's health across the lifecourse.

Contractors:

• City of Pasadena Department of Public Health
• City of Long Beach Department of Health & Human Services
• Los Angeles County Department of Public Health