The Maryland Community Health Resources Commission (MCHRC) has awarded a two-year $875,000 “Pathways to Health Equity” grant to Baltimore Healthy Start (BHS) and its partner Total Health Care (THC) to address racial disparities in Hypertension, Substance Use Disorder, Low Birth Weight births, and Severe Maternal Morbidity among pregnant and postpartum women in Baltimore City zip codes 21216 and 21217. The project builds upon existing BHS service coordination and home-visiting services that address social determinants of health and which identify changes in perinatal clinical conditions for expedited medical consultation and treatment.
Augmenting current practice will be: 1) training and equipping pregnant and postpartum women with home blood pressure monitors and internet-connected devices to more closely monitor rapidly changing hypertensive conditions that can lead to severe maternal morbidity and maternal mortality; 2) expanding service capacity at Total Health Care for the joint BHS-THC Dyad Care services model that integrates infant well-child visits with extended postpartum care and monitoring for maternal health complications; and 3) enhanced services to pregnant and postpartum women with substance use disorder, including office-based buprenorphine treatment at THC, and technical assistance from Sex Workers Promoting Action, Risk reduction, and Community mobilization (SPARC) to train BHS outreach and program recruitment staff in best practices to engage and maintain in services women with substance use disorder.
The project utilizes a rigorous population-level evaluation to measure impact to health outcomes among pregnant and postpartum women and their infants who live in the geographic service area to determine if this model of enhanced community-based home-visiting services integrated with primary care is an effective model that should be extended and replicated.
Peter Schafer developed the project with Lashelle Stewart and Maxine Reed-Vance of Baltimore Healthy Start, and Peter Schafer wrote the grant proposal.