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Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker Program
| Topics |
Children
Outreach
Women
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| States served |
Arkansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Tennessee
West Virginia
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| Description |
The Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) Program is a community-based, low cost intervention that improves family health and child development for low-income families in Appalachia and the deep South. Using local women as the primary staff, the program is a partnership between Vanderbilt University’s Center for Health Services and 24 community-based organizations in rural and inner-city areas of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Since it started in 1982, MIHOW has served more than 10,000 low-income families.
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| Services offered |
Through a partnership between community agencies and Vanderbilt University, MIHOW trains and employs local women to mentor other women in their own homes to promote healthy children, healthy emotional bonds between children and their parents, and to help them advocate for unmet family needs within their community. Through home visits and parenting groups, the trained lay health outreach workers respond to each family’s strengths and needs.
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| Results |
Several studies demonstrate that:
• MIHOW improves families access to affordable medical care, use of well-baby medical services, and ability to secure help for problems with alcoholism, drug abuse, or depression.
• MIHOW mothers consume more vitamin and iron in pregnancy, and use less tobacco and caffeine.
• They are more likely to breastfeed than a comparison group.
• MIHOW children and mothers scored significantly better than the comparison group on all subscales and total scores of the Caldwell HOME Inventory at ages one and two.
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| Source |
Center for Health Services, Vanderbilt University
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| Contact person |
Barbara Clinton, MSW
Director, Center for Health Services
Vanderbilt University
Station 17
Nashville, TN 37232
615-322-4176
barbara.m.clinton@vanderbilt.edu |
Summaries of success stories are provided for your convenience. Please contact the success story contact person directly for the most complete and current information.
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