Nicholson-funded White Paper Provides Key Lessons for Designing Effective Interventions

A new white paper from the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (Camden Coalition) uses Camden Delivers, a maternal health improvement intervention, as a case study to illustrate how thoughtful, data-informed planning and design can result in a program that effectively matches community needs with already-available yet under-used resources.  Co-authored by Molly Cherington, Natasha Dravid, and Margaret Hawthorne, the paper provides important lessons for other non-profits and community coalitions on how to address pressing problems in their communities while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services.

Maternal mortality is a growing problem in the United States, and complications during pregnancy due to chronic disease are an important factor. In Camden, New Jersey, the maternal mortality problem is particularly acute, as about 30 of every 100,000 women die in childbirth—one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.  Chronic disease rates also are high in Camden.

The Camden Coalition realized that it was in a good position to address this problem because its broad-based coalition of community healthcare providers already was responsible for the care of 8,500 women of maternal age. The Coalition used a thoughtful and strategic planning and design process to develop Camden Delivers, an intervention to address chronic illness among women of reproductive age.

The white paper details how the Camden Delivers program:

• Collected data available through the Camden Coalition’s Accountable Care Organization, and convened focus groups with women in Camden to understand community maternal health needs;
• Established a population health surveillance mechanism to produce actionable data on the health status of maternal-age women;
• Used these two sources of data to institute an intervention system tailored to specific groups of women at different levels of need; and
• Leveraged and coordinated already-existing community resources – including over 20 existing programs focusing on maternal health – to reduce duplication.

Download the White Paper

Learn more about Camden Delivers

Funding for Camden Delivers is provided by Merck, through its Merck for Mothers initiative.  The Nicholson Foundation, which provided $5.3 million in direct funding to the Camden Coalition and $6.7 million in grants to other organizations to support the Coalition's work from 2010 to 2016, played a critical role in helping the Coalition grow.