Enhancing the Capacity of Local Health Departments to Address Birth Equity: The Institute for Equity in Birth Outcomes.

Introduction: Significant and persistent racial and ethnic disparities exist related to infant mortality and other birth outcomes. Few models exist that aim to prepare organizations to implement essential features, such as community engagement or intervening on social determinants of health.

Methods: Between 2013 and 2015, teams from seven local health departments participated in the Institute for Equity in Birth Outcomes (EI) with the goals of building capacity and implementing changes to address equity in birth outcomes.

Assessing the Development of Collective Impact Initiatives Addressing Maternal and Child Health.

Purpose: To examine the extent to which communities participating in the Collective Impact Learning Collaborative (CILC) increased capacity to create conditions for collective impact (CI) to address racial disparities in maternal and child health (MCH) and align local efforts with state MCH priorities over a 12-month period.

Description: Eight communities participated in a learning collaborative that involved the provision of technical assistance via webinars, monthly team calls, and site visits to facilitate the development of a collective impact initiative. A Ready-Set-Go approach to technical assistance was used to guide the communities through each phase of development while also providing individual assistance to teams based on their capacity at the start of participation.

The Well-Woman Project: Listening to Women's Voices.

The U.S. Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 included the Well-Woman Visit (WWV) as one of the preventive services, which must be covered without cost sharing.