Promising Practices in Maternal & Child Health Fact Sheets
The Promising Practices in Maternal and Child Health fact sheets highlight emerging and promising collaborations between health plans and other MCH stakeholders. Read more about the Promising Practices in Maternal & Child Health Program.
Bringing the Blue Zones® to Iowa–Collaborating to Improve Statewide Health - February 2013
Iowa is on a mission to become the healthiest state in the nation by 2016, and it has a plan. One of the centerpieces of that plan is the Blue Zones Project, a cutting-edge program to improve individual health through community-wide environmental and social change. Project partners Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Healthways, and Blue Zones, together with local leaders, are working to restructure communities in a way that guides residents toward healthier behaviors. This fact sheet describes the evidence and theory behind the Blue Zones Project and how stakeholders in 19 demonstration sites are working to make healthy lifestyles the local custom.
Delivering Improvements in Infant Mortality Rates - October 2012
In some parts of Tennessee, the infant mortality rate is roughly twice the national average, and across the state poor birth outcomes are responsible for an estimated $610 million in health care costs each year. In response to these statistics, the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation has developed partnerships with innovative organizations that are making headway in improving maternal and infant health. This fact sheet highlights two examples of these partnerships: a program that couples socio-emotional counseling with medical care for expectant mothers, and a telemedicine initiative that connects at-risk pregnant women in isolated areas with physician specialists.
Preventing Early Childhood Obesity in North Carolina - September 2012
The nutrition and physical activity children receive while in day care is a vital part of helping them develop healthy behaviors. Elevating the health policies, practices and facilities of child care providers in North Carolina is one of the primary goals of Shape NC, a three-year, three-million-dollar partnership between the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation and the North Carolina Partnership for Children. This fact sheet details how the Shape NC partnership is joining grant funding and training resources with a vast network of community-based alliances, and it highlights early data showing that participating communities and care centers are indeed shaping up.
Over the course of two community service initiatives led by employees at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), a unique partnership developed between the health plan and a Massachusetts-based youth mentoring program called Crossroads for Kids. This fact sheet shows how BCBSMA’s highly tailored approach to meeting community needs and strategic deployment of staff talents, as well as the enthusiastic participation and clear vision of Crossroads for Kids, ensured a successful collaboration that promises to expand access to important youth empowerment activities for years come.
Preventing Bullying in Schools Through Partnerships - April 2012, updated January 2013
When Highmark Foundation launched a new initiative to increase schools’ capacities to mitigate instances of bullying, it started by building a coalition of leaders in bullying prevention. Together the Foundation and its coalition are responsible for the largest implementation of the Olewus Bullying Prevention Program in the United States. This fact sheet calls attention to the dynamics that ensured a successful partnership, such as building upon the established work of coalition members and supporting ongoing evaluation. The coalition also created a road map for other organizations to use to justify and implement new school-based bullying prevention programs.
Partnering to Promote Healthy Babies - August 2011
Public-private partnerships have been critical to the success of text4baby, the nation’s first free health text messaging service aimed at improving the health of new mothers and their infants. This fact sheet highlights how health plans and health plan foundations support text4baby and suggests ways plans and foundations can partner with state and local governments and community organizations to further promote the service. Health insurers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, Aetna, and 75 other commercial and Medicaid health plans are important and active partners in developing innovative strategies to encourage pregnant women and new mothers to sign up for text4baby.