By Wendy Keyes/March of Dimes
The New Jersey Chapter of the March of Dimes received the 2014 national Audrey Manley Program Leadership Award which recognizes one March of Dimes chapter that has developed and supported a community-based program that enhances awareness of the March of Dimes and strives to reduce risks for premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality in at-risk populations. This award highlights the chapter’s initiatives to reduce racial or ethnic disparities in birth outcomes.
March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer L. Howse presented the award to New Jersey chapter for their Healthy Babies are Worth the Waitâ (HBWW) program in Newark, which is a March of Dimes chapter-led, community program aimed at reducing preterm birth. It was developed to test if clinical and public health collaborations, implemented through bundled healthcare delivery interventions, could decrease preterm births. It works in partnership between the March of Dimes chapter, the health department, local clinics and hospitals, and the community and it includes clinical and public health interventions, provider/patient education, and community awareness. Efforts are focused on results and include process and pregnancy outcome measures. The program is functioning at three Newark community partner locations: University Hospital, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, and Newark Community Health Centers.
Over the past three years, the New Jersey Chapter planned, established, and is currently implementing the HBWW community program in Newark, where 49.6% of births are to African American women and 17.4% of those births are premature. The goal set by the volunteer HBWW Newark Advisory Board is to reduce preterm birth by 8% among African-American women in Newark and surrounding communities of Orange, East Orange, and Irvington.
Through the program, almost 5000 women have been directly served by Patient Navigators and through CenteringPregnancyâ (a model of prenatal care that has demonstrated a reduction in preterm births), and over 1500 health care providers have received continuing education. There are workgroups including one on Presumptive Medicaid Eligibility which works to increase access to prenatal care. The program has identified and advocated to correct a provider shortage that significantly reduced wait times for prenatal care, reorganized the clinic system for earlier, easier entry into prenatal care, provided prenatal education at ten community agencies and schools across the city and has worked with the community to develop materials to meet their specific needs.
“Our preliminary data shows that during the first two years of our demonstration project, there has been a decline in preterm births in African American women of 8.5% in our intervention sites and by 6.5% in the Greater Newark area,” said Laurie Navin, Director of Program Services. “The average medical costs of a preterm infant are 12 times more than a full term infant. This decrease in preterm births at our sites translates to an annual savings of almost $1.5 million.”
