Omaha Healthy Start to Launch New Outreach Program Aimed at Lowering Infant Mortality Rate

In January, Omaha Healthy Start will begin a more "aggressiv[e]" outreach campaign aimed at reducing the region's high infant mortality rate, the Omaha World-Herald reports. Omaha Healthy Start, part of the Charles Drew Health Center, will focus the new outreach program on the African-American community in the northeast section of Omaha, which continues to have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the nation. Through door-to-door visits, telephone calls, mass media campaigns, home visitation and networking with "local gathering centers," such as churches and schools, the new effort will stress the importance of prenatal care to both mothers and fathers in the hopes of getting parents into the clinic and monitoring children through their first year. Judith Hill, Omaha Healthy Start project manager, said that previous outreach efforts relying on the news media, fliers and brochures did not really reach the goal of reducing infant mortality in the area. Omaha Healthy Start, one of 94 Healthy Start chapters nationwide, will fund the program through a four-year, $3.6 million federal grant it received earlier this year. Healthy Start officials have studied their most successful programs nationwide and found that "personal interaction and getting women into ... clinics yielded better results that simply improving awareness." Hill said, "We're more of an outreach program than we used to be. ... Hopefully, we'll create a model of service across the state" (Brunt, Omaha World-Herald, 12/14).