Healthy Babies and Families Group Visit Program

Health care access

Applying a proven solution to a new issue or sector (using an existing model, tool, resource, strategy, etc. for a new purpose)

The South Los Angeles region that UMMA serves has been designated by the federal government as both a Medically Underserved Area and a Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Area. Over 78% of our patients live 200% and below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and of these 56% live 100% below the FPL. A total of 17% of our patients are uninsured. Our patients experience preterm birth and low birth weight infants at rates up to twice the Los Angeles (LA) County average. Low birth weight was common in 13.6% of the infants we served in 2023 compared to the most recent LA County average of 7.8% in 2022. A total of 18% preterm births occurred amongst UMMA patients in 2023 compared to the most recent LA County average of 9.4% in 2021. With this project we aim to reduce maternal and infant health disparities that exist in South LA, through postpartum behavioral health group visits combined with an early childhood literacy program.

Our prenatal services are integrated into our primary care offerings and include nutritional assistance, SDOH screenings, lactation assistance, behavioral health support, and transportation aid in addition to routine care. Our evidence-based Comprehensive Perinatal Services Program (CPSP) and the Centering Healthcare Institute’s CenteringPregnancy models of care are the cornerstones of our prenatal program, ensuring patients and their partners or support people receive comprehensive care and education throughout pregnancy. CenteringPregnancy is an evidence-based group visit model which has been shown to improve health outcomes and reduce risk of preterm birth and low birth weight babies. For this project, as part of our innovation, we would like to extend the group visit model beyond our primary care department’s prenatal services by offering much needed behavioral health group visits for our new parents. This postpartum support program is inspired by the ongoing collaboration between our primary care and Behavioral Health teams on the CenteringPregnancy program. We will develop a new group model to be led by our Behavioral Health team (as opposed to our medical team leading the CenteringPregnancy program) with a particular focus on postpartum mental health, uniquely run through Behavioral Health group visits which include early childhood development trainings as well as addressing social determinants of health.

This funding will allow us to increase our capacity to provide mental health support to our postpartum mothers. We aim to increase access to essential support during infancy for our majority Latino and African American maternal and infant population. We will initially offer services to existing CenteringPregnancy patients who are familiar with a group-care model and have already built community amongst themselves and intend to expand enrollment to all of UMMA’s prenatal patients within the first year. We believe this will help us provide holistic care to our new families, allowing them the opportunity to further develop comradery and support one another through the challenges of matrescence and new parenthood. Furthermore, the groups will include activities to help parents bond with their infants while engaging in early literacy activities integrated into each visit. With this we aim to reduce maternal and infant health disparities that exist in underserved communities like South LA.

Our program will be evaluated through data tracking of postpartum group visits with our Behavioral Health providers.
With funding, we aim to reach at least 50 new mothers in the following ways: 1. Allocate (0.3 FTE) existing staff time of a Clinical Social Worker to lead this project. 2. Conduct warm handoffs from our primary care prenatal care department to our behavioral health department to ensure new mothers who participated in CenteringPregnancy will continue on in the postpartum behavioral health group visits. 3. New evidence shows the value of providing language and literacy skills as early as 2 months. UMMA’s Behavioral Health Team will collaborate with staff in UMMA’s Literacy Program to ensure childhood literacy for babies 0-12 months. This will provide health education to mothers and tools and resources (books, educational materials, etc.) for ensuring children attain early childhood development and literacy skills.