Black Infant Health Program

MO-07-0029 BIH

The BIH program serves pregnant and parenting African-American women through a group intervention as well as complementary case management in order to improve the health and social conditions for African-American women and their families. The BIH group intervention is a 20 session intervention—10 sessions prenatally and 10 postpartum.  They are designed to empower and support African American women by providing information and skills in a culturally relevant and affirming manner. This strength-based intervention will access and enhance the knowledge and skills that BIH clients possess as they enter the group.  The sessions offer engaging activities from a women’s health perspective that will explore pregnancy-related (prenatal group sessions) and newborn parent-related (postpartum group sessions) topics as well as personal empowerment skills. By participating in the group process, this will help mom create a life plan for the future, which will ultimately improve women’s health across the lifecourse.

The BIH program is located in 15 Local Health Jurisdictions where over 75% of California’s African American live births occur.