The Pop-Up Village

A collaborative of local community-based organizations, local businesses, and the San Francisco City agencies working together to establish neighborhood-based "villages" that bring together community assets and resources to improve health outcomes for pregnant people and their families. 

​Since 2016, Pop-Up Villages have provided essential services in public spaces for under-resourced communities and spurred economic development and community engagement. The pregnancy-based Pop-Up Village seeks to transform perinatal care in San Francisco by ensuring that pregnant people facing systemic inequities—particularly Black women and their families - have access to essential healthcare and other holistic resources. The holistic services are delivered using a low-burden, community-based, and anti-racist service delivery model in spaces designed to be uplifting and celebratory. 

Whereas standard healthcare approaches focus only on the pregnant person, The pregnancy Pop-Up Village includes services to improve the well-being of pregnant people and their communities before, during, and after pregnancy. Examples include tailored support for expecting fathers, access to healthy and sustainable foods, arts and cultural activities, youth programs, acupuncture, and yoga. Building on pilot programs in West Oakland and Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco, the cross-sector collaborative will expand its neighborhood-specific model across San Francisco.

The Collaboration

The Problem

  • In San Francisco, Black people account for 50% of maternal deaths and 15% of infant deaths, despite representing only 4% of total births. Structural, institutional, and interpersonal anti-Black racism in healthcare is a contributing factor to inequitable health outcomes for Black families.[1]

  • Traditional perinatal care models often fail to reverse inequitable health outcomes because they do not address barriers to access and are not designed in culturally relevant ways. 

[1] Nijagal et al. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-021-06609-8

Read "Using human centered design to identify opportunities for reducing inequities in perinatal care" research written and published by Malini A. Nijagal, Devika Patel, Courtney Lyles, Jennifer Liao, Lara Chehab, Schyneida Williams & Amanda Sammann in BMC Health Services Research. The research discusses the work accomplished in San Francisco that demonstrated the need for launching a pregnancy focused Pop-Up Village.
Published July 20, 2021
“For pregnant people to have optimal outcomes for themselves and their babies, they need access to more than just excellent medical care during pregnancy. Although programs to support people’s non-medical needs exist, our systems were never built to allow for coordination of such programs, and the burden of accessing needed support and services falls on the individual themselves. As with so many other structural determinants of health, those who face the greatest inequities in health and health care also face the greatest burden in accessing them.”
- Malini Nijagal, Director of the San Francisco Respect Initiative and Anchor Partner for the Pop-Up Village
For more information, contact:
Malini Nijagal, MD MPH
Director, San Francisco Respect Initiative (SFRi)
[email protected]