News
NICHQ Awarded $6.9M to Eliminate Disparities for Black Mothers and Birthing People and Their Infants
September 4, 2024
BOSTON – The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) announces an award of $6.9M in growth funding to promote a new paradigm in which Communities, Hospitals, and state Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs) work together to eliminate disparities in maternal and infant mortality. This significant award will launch the Community-Centered Hospital Initiative (CCHI), developed by the NICHQ team, to address the stark and persistent disparities in the health outcomes of mothers, birthing people, and infants by strengthening collaboration and power-sharing between Communities and Hospitals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that Black women are at least three times more likely to die due to a pregnancy-related cause when compared to White women, and Black babies are two times more likely to die in the first year of life compared to White infants.
“While a multi-faceted set of causes contributes to these disparities, including social determinants of health, systemic racism, and lack of access to high-quality and culturally responsive care,” said NICHQ President and CEO Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP. “Existing efforts have primarily focused on hospital-based clinical interventions without authentic and community-centered engagement of the families most impacted by these disparities. We believe a new paradigm is needed where Communities, Hospitals, and Perinatal Quality Collaboratives authentically work together to eliminate disparities in birth outcomes.”
NICHQ will serve as the national coordinating center to provide cross-geography supports, partnering with state PQCs to leverage local partnerships. The aim is for Community-Based Organizations to engage with local Hospitals on topics that are high priority to the community, supported by CCHI Community Engagement Coordinators. Various community-based engagement activities, such as listening sessions, will facilitate partnerships and collectively center the community voice. The Community-Centered Hospital Initiative will incorporate the building of a replicable program model in a set of pilot states during the first three years, with expansion planned across pilot states and, ultimately, across the nation to achieve this new paradigm over time.
“We are excited by this opportunity to further NICHQ's dedication to advancing equity. Innovation, a powerful force, can assist us in achieving equitable health systems of care. The Community-Centered Hospital Initiative allows us to harness this innovation to address the challenges in complex systems and work to balance the inequity in communities nationwide,” said Stacy Scott, Ph.D, MPA, CSJ, who leads the Department of Health Equity Innovation at NICHQ. “The work of the National Network of Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (NNPQC) and the Healthy Start Technical Assistance & Support Center (TASC), housed here at NICHQ, provides the foundation on which we will build. We are committed to centering communities, balancing power, and designing solutions that will improve the experience and outcomes of Black mothers and birthing people and their infants.”
The initiative is funded by The Studio @ Blue Meridian. The Studio seeks to empower social sector leaders by providing flexible resources – both coaching and capital – that help accelerate their organizations’ readiness to significantly scale their reach, impact, and influence. The NICHQ team participated in a six-month process to refine the project, which will pilot in six geographies, delivering and testing a model that can be replicated and used to scale within states, and, eventually, more broadly across the U.S. A particular focus will be on validating the effectiveness and scalability of the program model to inform future stages of growth.
“We were honored to have NICHQ participate in our process and are excited for the potential of their work to help eliminate disparities for Black mothers and birthing people and their infants by partnering with Communities, Hospitals, and State Perinatal Quality Collaboratives,” said Lizz Pawlson, Managing Director Portfolio Lead for The Studio @ Blue Meridian.
This model and approach build on NICHQ’s assets and experiences with an even deeper intention to center community in our work,” said Meghan Johnson, MSc, VP of Mission Integration at NICHQ. “Through communities taking action based on their own context and needs, we expect to see examples of changes in clinical practice that have a plausible link to longer-term outcomes for parents and infants.”
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ABOUT NICHQ: The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) is an independent, mission-driven nonprofit boldly leading improvements in children’s health by addressing inequities and other complex issues facing families. With a deep commitment to health equity, NICHQ partners with local, state, county, and federal entities to improve the quality of care provided to children and their families.
ABOUT THE STUDIO: The Studio @ Blue Meridian invests in social sector organizations to accelerate their readiness to significantly scale their reach, impact, and influence. Blue Meridian launched The Studio to fill clear gaps in the social sector funding market that restrict leaders looking to experiment and iterate upon their existing models – gaps that are exacerbated by persistent racial inequities. The Studio is a central pillar of Blue Meridian Partners’ commitment to collaboration and experimentation in pursuit of boosting the economic mobility of those trapped in poverty.
