Post date
August 7, 2022
Publication
The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
Authors
Tania Maria Caballero MD, MHS, Estefania Miramontes-Valdes MD, Sarah Polk MD, ScM
Summary
Pediatric studies on interconception care support maternal contraceptive care within pediatric settings, yet there is little information about the potential for CHWs in this role, let alone CHWs serving as cultural and language brokers.19,20 Previous studies show that CHWs can successfully bridge language gaps, foster communication between medical teams, build community capacity to address health disparities, and improve satisfaction with health care services.2,3 Luque et. al demonstrated that CHWs working with low income immigrants in a new destination city could successfully assist individuals in accessing prescription discounts, sliding scale fees, and payment plan requests.21 Individuals seeking contraceptive methods and services would benefit from accessing similar financial and service navigation support.
To explore CHW led maternal contraceptive navigation for immigrants in a new destination city, we developed Mi Plan/My Plan. Mi Plan is a CHW led sexual and reproductive health counseling and contraceptive resource navigation pilot based in a pediatric primary care practice. We hypothesized that Spanish-speaking mothers would self-identify as needing contraceptive information or services in the pediatric setting because they regularly accessed care for their child and engaged with their child’s healthcare clinician and team, particularly over the first few years of life. We hypothesized that an on-site, bilingual CHW could feasibly provide brief contraceptive counseling and connect Spanish-speaking women3 to local contraceptive resources within approximately 3 months from initial encounter.
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Citation
Tania Maria Caballero MD, MHS , Estefania Miramontes-Valdes MD , Sarah Polk MD, ScM, Mi Plan: Using a pediatric based community health worker model to facilitate obtainment of contraceptives among Latino immigrant parents with contraceptive needs., The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2022.08.004
