What Happens in New Orleans Should NOT Stay in New Orleans

Last week myself and several other Every Woman Southeast leadership team members had the opportunity to attend an Infant Mortality Summit in New Orleans. The meeting was sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in collaboration with the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP), the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the March of Dimes. The meeting was specifically for states in the Department of Health and Human Services Regions IV and VI - 16 states that have historically had among the worst rates of infant mortality in the nation. The objectives for the meeting were ambitious and included to understand strategies to improve birth outcomes; create synergy among State Health Officials, MCH Directors, Medicaid and State partners; identify clear strategies and outcomes for each state (completed by state teams); investigate a common strategy for the states in the region; and create a unified message that builds on best practices. From the North Carolina perspective, I thought that the meeting went very well. I feel very hopeful that this may well be the significant push many of us have been waiting for to finally shine the light on infant mortality and move forward with some new energy and innovation. I'll post the proceedings on our website as soon as they become available.

And on a side note, I must say that I had a chance to taste my first Beignets at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. All I can say is "YUM". We Southerners may have our challenges but we also have some great food!

Taking on the Life Course Model

For the past few weeks the Every Woman Southeast Coalition's leadership team has been working to finalize its goals, logic model and action plan. As we've thought deeply about what needs to happen in the Southeast to truly improve the health of mothers and babies, we agree that change will only come when we take on the hard issues. These include the social determinants of health, policy issues that impact our communities, leadership development, and racism. That's enough to make your head swim!

But doing the business the way we always have doesn't cut it - especially in these difficult times. The Life Course Model is a new paradigm in the field of maternal and child health that has the potential to change our practice. This model offers a new way of looking at health, not as disconnected stages (infancy, latency, adolescence, childbearing years, menopause and beyond) unrelated to each other, but as an integrated continuum. This perspective suggests that a complex interplay of biological, behavioral, psychological, social and environmental factors contribute to health outcomes across the course of a person's life (thank you to Drs Pies, Kotelchuck, Lu and Ms Parthasarathy for the quote).

We want to figure out how to put this model into practice - here at home. Want to learn more? Check out the MCH Lifecourse Toolkit website from CityMatCH. They have excellent resources! We'll be posting our plan just as soon as its done - we'll be sure to let you know!

Alabama Adventure

Thank you to Team Alabama for inviting me to talk about the Every Woman Southeast Coalition at their annual Perinatal Symposium in Birmingham last week. While thunderstorms kept me in the Charlotte, NC airport longer than I liked, the weather in Alabama was beautiful! At the Symposium, I was honored to follow a fantastic presentation from Rose Horton, President-Elect of AWOHNN. The presentation was the first I've given about EWSE since we decided to push our boundaries and commit to addressing health inequities and the social determinants of health. I think it went over pretty well. The slides are posted on our website.

I also got a glimpse at Albama's fantastic preconception health campaign called GALS - Get a Healthy Life. Here is a link for more information http//www.adph.org/familyplanning. Seriously - a public education campaign that features shoes - fun and great information.

Thank you March of Dimes

This summer we hope to spend some time talking with partners across our 8 states to learn more about what they're doing for preconception health. We also want to hear more about their interests in our Initiative and what we can do to help and support their work. We also want to continue to keep our website current and promote our Facebook page and blog. You have shared both with your friends - right?!

We were really happy that the National Office of the March of Dimes agreed to support our work by providing us with a small grant. With these funds we will work with graduate student extraordinaire - Rebecca Sink - to place calls, talk with people and increase our momentum and the information we have on our website. We're also working on a logic model and grant proposals. So much for the lazy days of summer!

Interested in telling us about your work and ideas? Don't wait! Post your thoughts and ideas.

Let's Launch this Initiative!

Welcome to the Every Woman Southeast blog. Just as this new initiative is stretching many of us to think outside the box, jumping into the blogosphere is definitely a new horizon for some of us as well. There is much to be shared among the many partners who are signing on for this new journey. By learning from each other and working collaboratively, we hope to build a strong, diverse, focused effort, which will attract additional resources and opportunities.

Here is some more information about where we are starting.