The overall goal of this project is to increase access to health care services and improve maternal, infant and child health outcomes among refugees in Wisconsin. We will do this by first learning about refugees’ health care needs and priorities. We will then co-design, test, and implement a community-based intervention together with local stakeholders and Afghan, Congolese and Rohingya refugee communities. This training would be focused on maternal child health.
Learn more about why this is important and our plan for doing this work below.
Background
Worldwide, refugee women are more likely to experience pregnancy complications, poor birth outcomes, postpartum depression, and have unmet health needs after childbirth. Resettled refugees in the U.S., including those in Wisconsin, face many barriers to accessing health care, which can amplify their already poor maternal-child health outcomes. Unfamiliarity with the host country’s healthcare system, lack of interpreters, and limited transportation are some of the reasons underlying refugee women’s limited perinatal health care access and underuse.
In Wisconsin, state government (the Wisconsin Refugee Health Program) and volunteer resettlement agencies work in concert to support the resettlement and integration of diverse refugee populations throughout the state. For example, resettlement agencies assist refugees with finding employment and housing. They also play a key role in healthcare service referrals. Local health clinics also provide important primary health care services for refugees and other underserved or vulnerable populations. Yet, to date, services aimed specifically at supporting pregnant and postpartum refugee women and their infants are limited. Currently midwives, doulas, and physicians tend to focus on education and services surrounding the period right around birth, so it is important to expand services beyond the perinatal period to include pre-conception (including reproductive health and family planning) and early childhood (up to age 3).
Community health workers (CHWs) are trusted members of a community who can serve as cultural brokers and help connect members to mainstream healthcare services. CHWs have been shown to strengthen patient- provider relationships, reduce patients’ health risks, and improve proper health care usage among disadvantaged and underserved populations. But less is known about the effectiveness of CHWs for increasing health care access and improving health outcomes among pregnant and postpartum refugee women.
What we hope to do
The overall purpose of this project is to use a co-designed community health worker intervention specifically focused on maternal child health (Mat-CHW) to:
- Increase access to maternal and child health care services.
- Improve maternal, infant and child health outcomes among refugees in Wisconsin.
We will be working closely together with community partners serving refugees, including Aurora Walker’s Point Community Clinic in Milwaukee and World Relief Wisconsin in the Fox Valley. Afghan, Congolese and Rohingya refugee communities in Wisconsin will also be involved throughout the project.
The study will fill important public health knowledge and CHW training gaps by developing and pilot testing the mat-CHW intervention among pregnant and postpartum refugees in Wisconsin.
Together the current and future research will lay the groundwork for the replication and scaleup of culturally appropriate, community-based interventions that can improve the health and well-being of refugee women and their US-born children across the state.
Team
Principal investigator: Zoua Vang, School of Human Ecology (SoHE), UW-Madison
Co-investigators: Larissa Duncan, SoHE, UW-Madison; Beth Olson, Nutrition, UW-Madison
Project and research assistants & trainees: Carla Rattunde, Adejumoke Olopade, Kaitlyn Landry
Community partners: Aurora Walker’s Point Community Clinic; Division of Extension Health & Well-being Institute; World Relief Fox Valley
Steering committee members:
- Eve Ropel – Educator
- Yusuf Abdullah – Physician, SSM Health, Sun Prairie Clinic
- Savitri Tsering – Refugee Health Coordinator, Wisconsin Department for Children and Families