Using Design Thinking with the Community to Improve Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Infant Outcomes: A Wisconsin (WI) Maternal Infant Outcomes Study (MIOS)
Mentor 1
Jeana Holt
Start Date
28-4-2023 12:00 AM
Description
Despite decades of research and interventions to improve infant and maternal health outcomes, there remain stark differences in who will likely experience short- or long-term consequences or death due to disparities in resources and healthcare access. To address and study this public health crisis locally, the study team analyzed PeriData.Net, a clinical registry of Milwaukee County maternal-infant hospital data, to evaluate maternal and infant risk. The results indicated that the lowest socioeconomic status neighborhoods experience the highest burden of poor infant and maternal outcomes. The research team presented the results to the Ascension-Wisconsin Blanket of Love, a Milwaukee-based perinatal health program. Afterward, the UWM Wisconsin (WI) Maternal Infant Outcomes Study (MIOS) and the Blanket of Love teams used design thinking and a human-centeredness approach to co-create culturally affirming perinatal program content. This included co-creating a perinatal curriculum and a companion web application, Maternity-MetrixTM, for faith-based health ministers. Faith-based health ministers are non-clinicians who support pregnant and birthing people but often lack clinical knowledge to inform pregnant people about healthy pregnancies effectively. We anticipate piloting the perinatal curriculum and companion web application this year. We will gather feasibility and accessibility data and refine the curriculum and web application accordingly. We expect that the perinatal curriculum and companion web application provides evidence-based information at a health literacy level that is accurate, assessable, and actionable for faith-based health ministers. We will also track the participating pregnant people’s number of prenatal care visits; management of chronic conditions; gestational age and weight; mode of delivery; NICU admission; and breastfeeding initiation.
Using Design Thinking with the Community to Improve Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Infant Outcomes: A Wisconsin (WI) Maternal Infant Outcomes Study (MIOS)
Despite decades of research and interventions to improve infant and maternal health outcomes, there remain stark differences in who will likely experience short- or long-term consequences or death due to disparities in resources and healthcare access. To address and study this public health crisis locally, the study team analyzed PeriData.Net, a clinical registry of Milwaukee County maternal-infant hospital data, to evaluate maternal and infant risk. The results indicated that the lowest socioeconomic status neighborhoods experience the highest burden of poor infant and maternal outcomes. The research team presented the results to the Ascension-Wisconsin Blanket of Love, a Milwaukee-based perinatal health program. Afterward, the UWM Wisconsin (WI) Maternal Infant Outcomes Study (MIOS) and the Blanket of Love teams used design thinking and a human-centeredness approach to co-create culturally affirming perinatal program content. This included co-creating a perinatal curriculum and a companion web application, Maternity-MetrixTM, for faith-based health ministers. Faith-based health ministers are non-clinicians who support pregnant and birthing people but often lack clinical knowledge to inform pregnant people about healthy pregnancies effectively. We anticipate piloting the perinatal curriculum and companion web application this year. We will gather feasibility and accessibility data and refine the curriculum and web application accordingly. We expect that the perinatal curriculum and companion web application provides evidence-based information at a health literacy level that is accurate, assessable, and actionable for faith-based health ministers. We will also track the participating pregnant people’s number of prenatal care visits; management of chronic conditions; gestational age and weight; mode of delivery; NICU admission; and breastfeeding initiation.
