Project IMPACT is a research study working with 11 community groups in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee to help people get ready for a healthy pregnancy. The program uses a proven approach called Preconception Counseling (PC), which helps people think about their health and any risks that could affect them or their future baby. This includes things like eating habits, stress, medical issues, and access to care. By talking about these things early, Project IMPACT helps people take steps to stay healthy and build stronger families and communities.
Why This Matters
Black women in the U.S. are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, with cardiomyopathy, preeclampsia, and eclampsia contributing significantly to maternal disability and death. Project IMPACT focuses on using nutrition and diet to protect cardiovascular health. Project IMPACT also includes male partners, who are often excluded from preconception care despite their important role in maternal, infant and family health.
Southeastern Maternal Health Community Implementation Project - The objective of this project is to test implementation of Pre-pregnancy Counseling with father involvement in community-based settings to improve cardiovascular health outcomes before and during pregnancy in Georgia and South Carolina.
We conducted a community informed needs and assets assessment with our diverse stakeholders to identify opportunities and barriers and develop a stakeholder-informed implementation plan. We then used the implementation plan to pilot pre-pregnancy counseling with father involvement in community-based settings. We will critically assess the context, identify potential barriers and facilitators, and iteratively adapt the way pre-pregnancy counseling could be implemented in diverse settings. These findings will support future research to identify barriers and opportunities for scalable and sustainable approaches to implementing evidence-based strategies to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality in Georgia and South Carolina’s vulnerable communities
Funding Sources: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH) 
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