Abstract
We examined whether pairing pregnant women with community health workers improved pregnancy outcomes among 254 Black women with singleton pregnancies participating in the Women-Inspired Neighborhood (WIN) Network: Detroit using a case-control design. A subset (N = 63) of women were recontacted and asked about program satisfaction, opportunities, and health behaviors. Michigan Vital Statistics records were used to ascertain controls (N = 12,030) and pregnancy and infant health outcomes. Logistic and linear regression were used to examine the association between WIN Network participation and pregnancy and infant health outcomes. The WIN Network participants were less likely than controls to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (odds ratio = 0.55, 95% CI 0.33-0.93) and had a longer gestational length (mean difference = 0.42, 95% CI 0.02-0.81). Community health workers also shaped participants' view of opportunities to thrive. This study demonstrates that community health workers can improve pregnancy outcomes for Black women.
Copyright: © 2023 Straughen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Publication types
-
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
MeSH terms
-
Community Health Workers*
-
Female
-
Humans
-
Infant
-
Infant, Newborn
-
Intensive Care Units, Neonatal
-
Michigan / epidemiology
-
Odds Ratio
-
Pregnancy
-
Pregnancy Outcome*
Grants and funding
Financial support for this work included the following: WIN Network was originally funded with grant support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ($300,000), the Kresge Foundation ($750,000), the W.K. Kellogg Foundation ($800,000), the PNC Foundation ($20,000), and March of Dimes Foundation – Michigan Chapter ($25,000) and The Jewish Fund ($150,000). The program was also supported by the financial contributions of the University of Michigan School of Public Health ($39,000; plus $6,000 in-kind) and the four participating health systems: Henry Ford Health System, Detroit Medical Center, Oakwood Healthcare System and St. John Providence Health System (for a combined $260,000; plus $528,500 in-kind). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. During the study, Yolanda Hill-Ashford, Lonni Schultz and Gwen Alexander, three of the co-authors received some salary support from the funders listed above. Most other authors were supported by Henry Ford Health (salary support) or in-kind.