Preventing Infant Mortality in Georgia February 2019 | Page 2

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Healthcare Georgia Foundation
rom 2013-2017, Healthcare Georgia Foundation invested $2.5 million to support the TCOY Initiative in
selected Georgia public health departments serving high-disparity communities, with the goal of building
their capacity to implement and assess strategies to reduce adverse infant health outcomes, including
preterm birth, low birth weight, and sleep-related deaths. The grantees – Clayton County Board of Health, Lowndes
County Board of Health, and Southwest Public Health District’s Dougherty County Health Department and Ellenton
Farmworker Health Clinic in Colquitt County – were selected based on a competitive funding announcement and
lessons learned from previous Foundation grantmaking in infant health, including:
 The publication of the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) 2012 Infant Mortality Report, From
Preconception to Infant Protection: A Regional Look at Periods of Risk for Georgia’s Newborns (2002-2006),
which identified six geographical clusters of infant mortality and factors associated with infant mortality
in those clusters; and
 Implementation of the Promising Approaches to Improved Infant Health demonstration project in 2013
among six organizations located in the geographical clusters identified in the DPH Report (Clayton County
Board of Health, East Central Health District, Emory University/Grady Memorial Hospital, Lowndes County
Board of Health, North Central Health District, and Southwest Public Health District), which assessed their
capacity to deliver interventions to improve infant health outcomes in their communities.
hree TCOY grantees were funded for a three-year period for a total of $450,000 ($150,000 per year). Grants
for $75,000 for a fourth year were awarded to each grantee as part of an exit strategy for limited program
support and for continued participation in data collection and evaluation activities. Each of the following
public health grantees had unique approaches to addressing the needs of their clients and communities but committed
to cross-site process improvement evaluation in the three key areas of intervention for TCOY.
Clayton County Board of Health
Implemented and evaluated the Every Woman, Every Time program, targeting African-
American women of childbearing age, Medicaid eligible pregnant women and males (ages
15-60 years) residing in Clayton County. This project: 1) provided Reproductive Life Plans
(RLPs) to both women and men; 2) promoted the use of long-acting reversible
contraceptives (LARCs) for women; 3) provided pre-and post-natal education to women in
the Making Our Mothers Successful/Parents as Teachers (MOMS/PAT) home visitation
program; 4) linked women of childbearing age having chronic medical conditions to a
medical home; 5) increased folic acid and supplement intake among childbearing women;
6) completed psycho-social, socio-economic risk assessments for pregnant women; 7) incorporated family planning,
birth spacing, and postpartum depression screening into postpartum case management of women enrolled in MOMS/
PAT; and 8) increased knowledge of safe sleep practices among women.