Alameda County Maternal, Paternal, Child, Adolescent Health (MPCAH) Birth Worker Capacity Building ProjectOverview
In Alameda County, birthing people from under-resourced communities experience significantly worse health outcomes. The MPCAH Birthworker Capacity Building Project will address these disparities by increasing the doula workforce by 25% to support birthing families experiencing health disparities. Led by the Alameda County’s Public Health Department, additional key collaborators include Diversity Uplifts, Black Women Birthing Justice, Beloved Black Birth Centering Collaboration, Roots of Labor Birth Collective, First 5 of Alameda County, Asian Health Services, and Alameda Alliance for Health. The goal of the project is to increase healthy births, healthcare access, community engagement, and improve the economic security of participating doulas. Read more about the Alameda County MPCAH Birth Worker Capacity Building Project below: MPCAH’s uses a community-centered co-design approach that includes community members who both provide and/or receive services. Community members in the Collaboration offer ongoing feedback during program planning, implementation of services, quality improvement activities, and in evaluation. Using MPCAH’s current programming and partnerships they are well positioned to expand perinatal and reproductive equity efforts by broadening the current scope of the Doula Services Program by partnering with local Doulas and collectives to provide a culturally reflective Doula workforce and professional development opportunities, funding for administrative and capacity-building support to community partners and facilitating the onboarding of doulas offering services to community members that use Medi-Cal managed services. These efforts will build upon the existing Doula Services programming and MPCAH's infrastructure of the current perinatal and reproductive work provided by MPCAH. Led by the Alameda County Public Health Department and their partners rooted in Reproductive Justice theory and practice. Members of the collaborative represent the Alameda County community in diversity of ethnicity, language, religion, gender, and education. MPCAH currently has a solid representation of community Birth Worker expertise at the table but with goals to expand services, build Birth Worker opportunity and to invite more community experts of perinatal and reproductive justice into the partnership throughout Alameda County The Collaboration
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The Problem
According to hospital data in Alameda County, Black/ African Americans and Pacific Islanders have a preterm birth rate at 10.1 per 1,000. Pacific Islander families have the highest birth rate at 13.2 per 1,000 population, as well as the highest fetal death rate at 14.6 per 1,000 births. Although Alameda Counties Pacific Islander population has similar outcomes to the Black population, they are often included in the larger Asian population data collected which diminishes their unique experiences. The Public Health Department is aware that many of these birthing people lack adequate support in their native language and need a health advocate. However, there is a shortage of doulas to provide culturally specific care and support. Alameda County’s LGBT families’ needs are also largely underrepresented in programs that work to improve birth outcomes for marginalized communities. Due to current methods of data collection the LGBTQ community’s birth experiences and unique needs are largely unknown and thus un-addressed. For more information, contact:
Daphina Melbourne Perinatal Equity Initiative Coordinator Alameda County Public Health Dept. [email protected] |