General Information about program
With Black and Hispanic babies in the US continuing to die at rates two to three times higher than white babies, the Community Health Council of Wyandotte County (CHC) has decided to take a stand to help families in our area. Through extensive research, planning, and discussion, CHC has launched the Universal Maternal Community Health Worker project to address gaps in maternal-infant resources and care in eastern Kansas.
This project will train and educate seven Maternal Community Health Workers (MCHWs) and several supportive staff members. These MCHWs and staff members will be directly from the served and supported counties, including Leavenworth (LV), Miami, Johnson (JoCo), and Wyandotte County (WyCo). The project aims to provide support to individuals who are pregnant or a caregiver for a child up to their fourth birthday, along with their entire households.
MCHWs Role in Eastern Kansas
These MCHWs are delegated to a variety of tasks with the goal of eliminating gaps in existing maternal-child health programs and reducing the burden of maternal and infant health crises on eastern Kansas, especially on Black and Hispanic communities. The MCHWs will work closely with families in the region to evaluate their needs along with their access to maternal-child healthcare and resources. Their designated tasks include, but are not limited to:
- Connecting families from supported counties to important maternal-child resources and education.
- As well as connecting families to community resources for food, housing, etc.
- Providing support and motivation through breastfeeding and connecting families to breastfeeding resources and support groups if necessary.
- Attending OB-GYN and other medical appointments with mothers and families and advocating for their health and fair treatment.
- Assisting individuals and families with healthcare system navigation.
- Along with helping them find affordable health care facilities and medications.
- Helping apply for, understand, and utilize health benefits and programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, etc.
- Aiding mothers and families with postpartum depression (PPD) and anxiety (PPA) outreach and support.
- Offering tools and education to create a safe space and safe sleep habits for infants.
Caregivers and families with a pregnant individual and/or an infant under the age of four living in Wyandotte, Johnson, Miami, or Leavenworth Counties can receive support and assistance from an MCHW by calling (913) 371-9298.
Maternal and Infant Health Crisis
Maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rates in the United States continue to rise year-by-year, and increase exponentially for Black, Hispanic, and Latinx communities. These rising health rates and declining health outcomes heavily affect eastern Kansas communities, i.e. our communities. According to a 2019 Kids Count report Selected Indicators for Wyandotte County, KS, WyCo’s fetal infant mortality rate is 7.9 vs 5.9 for the state as a whole; and in African American communities in WyCo, the rate is 12.9 deaths per 1,000 live births.
The socioeconomic makeup of these communities heavily affects these maternal and infant health outcomes. More families in WyCo are unemployed, uninsured, and children are 3 times as likely to face childhood poverty; families in WyCo are also more likely to deal with great income inequalities. Miami and LV counties are seeing rates 2 to 3 times that of JoCo with much higher rates of teen pregnancy. However, despite the advantages families may have in JoCo, there has still been an increase in the number of low birth weight and preterm babies, STIs, and slightly higher infant mortality rates than in Miami County.
All of this shows why the Universal Maternal Community Health Worker program was created to help fill gaps in resources and improve health outcomes for mothers, infants, and families in Eastern Kansas.