United States of America

Featured Projects

B'more Fit for Healthy Babies

B'more Fit for Healthy Babies is a nutrition and fitness program for postpartum women in Baltimore City who want to lose weight and get fit. Weekly group sessions include Weight Watchers classes, exercise classes, grocery shopping tours, and tips on budgeting and food preparation. The community-based program is offered free to women who have a child or children under age 3 and meet income criteria.

The program is an initiative of B'more for Healthy Babies, a multi-year effort to reduce the alarmingly high rate of infant mortality in Baltimore City. Obesity is one of several risk factors of priority for B’more for Healthy Babies, in addition to infant safe sleep, smoking cessation, and birth spacing.

The private-public partnership offers an evidence-based weight loss approach that has been tailored to address barriers of affordability, access, and time constraints. The program is funded by the Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and The Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Charitable Foundation.

B’more for Healthy Babies

Baltimore babies die at a rate that is among the worst in America; Baltimore also has an extremely high rate of babies born pre-term and underweight – key factors in infant mortality. In response to this public health crisis, B'more for Healthy Babies was launched by the Baltimore City Health Department, in partnership with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and The Family League of Baltimore City, Inc. and community partners, including Baltimore Medical System (Patterson Park North and East) and University of Maryland Medical System Foundation (Upton/Druid Heights). B’more for Healthy Babies is built on the realization that reducing infant deaths will happen only if people throughout the community play a part – leaders of the key city agencies, physicians, nurses and social workers; community groups and teachers; fathers, grandmothers, caregivers and pregnant women themselves.

CCP is implementing a sophisticated communication campaign across the city that will share messages about infant safety and family health to all residents of Baltimore. The initiative will focus on three sets of messages:

  • Healthy and Safe Parenting
  • Healthy Pregnancy
  • Healthy Baltimore

    • CCP is also evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign.

    ProVision Eye Health Campaign

    ProVision Eye Health Campaign, a 2004-2008 project funded by NIH National Eye Institute, address eye health among Baltimore’s Latino population. Led by The Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Center for Communication Programs at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the goal of the project was to increase knowledge about diabetic eye disease and increase care-seeking behaviors. CCP developed an eye health communication strategy to address these project objectives. As part of this effort, CCP assisted in the development and implementation of the project’s household survey, designed and carried out qualitative formative research, designed and produced materials for interviewers and survey participants, and began to design the communication campaign strategy.

    The Life Changing Group (TLC)

    Ex-Offenders in Baltimore participate in reducing structural risk through service provision and housing reconstruction.

    The TLC’s program, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), seeks to address individual and structural sources of risk for the ex-offender population returning to selected communities in Baltimore. The project will seek to show that observed positive changes in structural risk are associated with decreased prevalence of Substance Abuse and HIV among re-entry residents. The focus will be on men, 21-50 years old, who have been released from prison or jail in the last 2 years. Phase I involves profiling the TLC Project Area in terms of socio-demographic, epidemiological characteristics, and available resources. Phase II is the intervention phase which involves a two part intervention strategy that will address the short-term individual sources of risk and expand upon the existing, long-term initiatives that make up TLC (there is a job training program, house reconstruction and in-house counseling and medical referral service that is supported by the Open Society Institute and the Abell Foundation). Phase III will involve reentry participants directly as they work with TLC staff to develop and implement action plans. These plans will focus on providing a peer driven approach that combines the long-term strategy of structural change with the short-term strategy of implementing prevention programs. Plans will target opportunities to address behaviors, programs, policies, or practices associated with SA and HIV acquisition and transmission. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will work with the Center for Communication Programs at the Bloomberg School of Public Health to provide program direction as well as the development of the monitoring and evaluation system and epidemiological support.

    Voices for a Malaria-Free Future

    Voices for a Malaria-Free Future (Voices) is a pioneering malaria advocacy project operating in Mali, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, and at the global partnership level. Funded by the Gates Foundation, Voices works to galvanize governments and partner organizations toward effective malaria control efforts and cultivate malaria champions around the world. Malaria endemic country advocacy emphasizes increased political will, improved policies, stronger management and coordination, while harmonizing with global malaria partnership-building and advocacy in the U.S. for increased malaria funding. Voices leads an integrated, international campaign of advocacy activities to incite and complement advances toward malaria eradication.

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