Signature Programs

Putting the right programs in the right place, with the right tone, at the right time!

Achievements

• Enrolled participants in lifestyle change program for

Diabetes and Chronic Disease Prevention. • Trained Lifestyle Coaches, building their capacity to support Black women in making important behavior changes. • Increased awareness of reproductive and sexual health among women aged 18 to 30, through MSK. • Increased awareness of the need for menstrual equity through Positive Period. Improvements in upcoming Plans: 1. How to measure and state impact beyond the metrics required by CDC 2. Moving women from awareness to action 3. Knowing what works instead of not knowing Steps to be taken in the future: 1. Explore new and innovative approaches to getting women to move from awareness to action – enrollment 2. Engage new partners who also serve Black women 3. Engage Black women in evaluating our program for program improvement

PROGRAMS

Change Your Lifestyle. Change Your Life. (CYL2)™

The Change Agency (CA) DETAILS

CYL2 is a CDC-recognized lifestyle change program delivered to prevent type 2 diabetes and other chronic conditions among Black women and Latinas by increasing awareness, screening and enrollment coverage.

CA is a CDC-designated training entity for the National Diabetes Prevention Program. Training entities are responsible for training lifestyle coaches and master trainers affiliated with CDC-approved program providers to increase their capacity to support participants in reaching their program goals. OUTCOMES

Social Media Impressions: 1,399,168 Risks Tests Completed on BWHI website: 584 Enrolled: 484 participants and 838 during the public health emergency Classes Offered: 33 Trainings offered: 20 Coaches Trained: 129 720 hours of technical assistance to other program providers

My Sister’s Keeper (MSK)

The MSK program empowers young Black women ages 18-30 to be powerful advocates and leaders through campus/community engagement, trainings, and chronic disease prevention programming.

Positive Period™ The Positive Period™ program addresses period poverty by providing education around menstruation and stigma, distributing menstrual products, and advocating for policies that support menstrual equity. SOCIAL MEDIA Followers: 330 Impressions: 3232 impressions Reach: 551 accounts reached MSK Academy: 241 women engaged MSK Chapter Engagement: 76 campus activities/ events across 7 active chapters Product Distribution: 30,000 products (pads, menstrual cups, and tampons) PP Partners: Engaged 5 partners across 4 states (SC, AL, MD, PR) and D.C.

Signature Programs

Change Your Lifestyle. Change Your Life. (CYL2)™

As one of the CDC's original grant recipients when the National Diabetes Prevention Program was commissioned by Congress and launched in 2012, we are collaborating with the CDC to compare outcomes of Black women enrolled in our culturally tailored virtual program to Black women enrolled in virtual programs offered by other program providers, using the CDC’s general market curriculum. BWHI is inviting Black women eligible for the program to enroll, give feedback, and help us further develop and improve our curriculum, our coaching, and our BWHI app. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health, the risk for diagnosed diabetes is 80% higher among non-Hispanic Blacks than their white counterparts.

Senior Program Manager Lenee ReedusCarson leads our distance learning program, and Senior Program Manager, Michele Tedder, leads the planning and preparation for our program evaluation. Black women who enroll in our program receive incentives for providing ongoing feedback on our coaching, curriculum, and app. We will identify the following in our evaluation: • Key elements and principles of the

BWHI culturally tailored approaches to incorporate into interventions for increased enrollment and retention. • How those approaches support improved health outcomes in Black women participating in the program. • Best practices for diabetes prevention program delivery to Black women and the lessons learned from these practices. Additionally, BWHI was selected along with three program affiliates (The Wellness Coalition, Whatley Health Services, Inc., and Outpatient Medical Center, Inc.) to participate in a CDC Case Study entitled Tailoring Program Delivery During the Public Health Emergency to Enroll and Retain Participants From Population of Focus. The CDC has granted permission for us to share this document with our staff, board, and partners. • Grambling State University (GSU) was invited to join our program provider network and receive funding from BWHI for program delivery in their respective service area. The program coordinator, Cynthia Parker, works closely with GSU faculty to implement the program with GSU employees. MSK Director

Zsanai Epps will be engaging GSU students to adapt the lifestyle change program curriculum to meet their needs and interests. • Lifestyle Coaches integrate content into and from the BWHI social media accounts to help promote the CYL² lifestyle change program and raise program awareness. The Men’s Room

The Men’s Room In recent years, research demonstrates that the life span of men has declined. According to Statistica (2021), In 2019, the life expectancy for men in the United States was 76 years of age. That research shows men pass on five years sooner than that of women due to chronic diseases (Statistica, 2021). Now is the time to help men improve their health The Men’s Room is a new project funded by CDC through the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors that engages Black men to create a lifestyle change program curriculum for themselves. The Men’s Room will be implemented by our Detroit partner, Urban Health Resource (UHR). UHR participated in the CDC pilot to increase enrollment of Black men in the National DPP. The BWHI team is preparing for a public-facing launch by developing an Op-Ed Article published in April. Senior Program Manager William Rowe is leading this project.

Signature Programs

Training and Technical Assistance

Our BWHI Trained Lifestyle Coaches are central to the program and participant successful outcomes.

COACHES ARE TRAINED TO:

1. Allow each participant to tell her own story. 2. Consider participants’ reality, lived experience, and intersectionality. 3. Set the tone of the group by fostering a supportive and respectful culture. 4. Promote the “participant voice” as the most important in the room, encouraging them to express their values, opinions and beliefs so the diversity of the group is apparent and valued. 5. Work with participants to establish a personal plan for making positive behavior changes that are aligned with the participant’s motivation, interests, and realities (e.g., affordability, beliefs, access). 6. Support participants by helping them problem-solve barriers to making lifestyle changes. 7. Reinforce learning, helping participants

“connect the dots” and establish accountability. In 2015, BWHI became a CDC-designated training entity for training coaches and master trainers to deliver the National Diabetes Prevention Program. In this role, we offer/provide training to generate revenue by contracting with other program providers included in the CDC National DPP Registry (https://nccd.cdc.gov/DDT_DPRP/Registry.aspx). All program providers must engage a CDC training entity for both new and advanced skills training. The registered name for our training entity is the Change Agency™, approved by and filed in Fulton County, GA. To learn more about the training entities, visit: https://nationaldppcsc.cdc.gov/s/article/ Training-for-your-Lifestyle-Coach.

Signature Programs

TRAINING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

• High-Touch Coaching™: This model was created by BWHI in 2016 in collaboration with our program partners in response to improving outcomes for the Black women and Latinas enrolled in the program who did not meet their weight loss goals. While we are known for our High-Touch coaching™, we are now training out-of-network coaches to use our model. BWHI will introduce our coaching model by hosting a national Lifestyle Coach training during a virtual collection of presentations in April. Supporting this effort, in July, during our hybrid High-Touch conference, our team will model and simulate our coaching style for enhanced program delivery and increased adaptation by a broader audience. The hybrid conference offers an in-person option and occurs July 28–30 in Washington, DC. • Our Healthy Eating Specialist, Erin Taylor (also known as the Dish

Diva™), presented during the 2-part POBcast, It Ain’t Necessarily

So, focused on dispelling healthy eating and nutrition myths. The audience for these sessions were the three organizations funded through our partnership with the American College of Preventive

Medicine and the American Medical Association, and 35 other program providers who are a part of the Learning Collaborative.

All organizations focus on enrolling Black women and Latinas.

Senior Program Manager Kimberly Lovelady leads our technical assistance work delivered through this partnership in its fifth year. • Senior Program Manager Yoko Allen provided ongoing technical assistance to all program partners related to progress reporting to BWHI, data reporting to CDC, and compliance with the CDC

Standards and Operating Procedures. • New training contracts executed: MS Department of Health ($25,000); Michigan Public Health Institute ($9,500). • Chief Training Officer (CTO) Paula Green-Smith and Senior

Program Manager Lenee Reedus-Carson both completed participation (as BWHI Master Trainers) in several months of the CDC-sponsored pilot of the National DPP Group Coaching

Certificate Program. They are both equipped and certified to train other Lifestyle Coaches for CDC. • Before I Let Go was an intervention strategy led by the training team. This POBCast discussion outlined coach strategies to encourage participants contemplating withdrawal from the program into completing it. • CTO is working with our CEO on a plan for a $350,000 Gilead grant-funded center of excellence to provide capacity-building training and support for five smaller Black female-led nonprofit organizations focused on triple- negative breast cancer in Black women. BWHI will provide mentoring and serve as a back office for the functional areas of financial management, fundraising, and non-profit operations and management.

Signature Programs

My Sister’s Keeper (MSK)is a Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) signature program created to empower young Black women ages 18-30 to be powerful advocates and leaders.

The program team is creating a plan for evolving leadership development beyond the MSK focus aligned areas of advocacy and organizing a capacity-building program that equips women for leadership roles related to their professional careers.

MSK’s recent wins and recognitions:

1. Received $25,000 from grant makers for Girls of Color’s Black Girl Freedom

Fund for an MSK Reproductive Justice

Leadership Cohort. 2. Launched the MSK Young Women’s

Heart Health Program in support of

American Heart Health Month. 3. Received $100,000 funding from Nike to support the expansion of the MSK

Heart Health Program. 4. Hosted the 2022 Spring National

MSK meeting for all of our program members. Core Components • Understanding and applying the tenets of reproductive rights and reproductive justice; • Sharing lived experiences through authentic storytelling; • Training and engaging women in policy basics, advocacy, base-building and mobilization; • Understanding and employing strategies for emotional wellness/self-care; and • Creating anti-racism/sexism strategies to fight for reproductive justice.

Focus Areas

• Sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice • Mental and emotional health • Menstrual insecurity and stigma • Gender discrimination and violence • Anti-racism and allyship • Anti-tobacco, smoking, and vaping BWHI’s On Our Own Terms (OOOT) is an informed network of organizations and experts who are focused on the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV for and by Black cis and transgender women through research, policy development, and programming. Launched in 2017, the program has published 15 digital articles, and hosted 12 webinars and other events. In 2021, OOOT hosted its first National HIV Testing Day campaign, with 1,074 complimentary, at-home testing kits made available to Black women across the country.

As their employee volunteer initiative, Saks, Inc., prepared feminine hygiene kits for Positive Period™ in honor of International Women’s Day. The Positive Period™ kits included a two-month supply of organic pads or tampons, feminine wipes, over-the-counter pain medicine (Tylenol, Advil, and Pamprin), and Nature Valley granola bars. Each of our eight active MSK chapters received 50 Positive Period™ kits for distribution on campus and in the community. Zsanai Epps joined virtually for the Saks kick-off and spoke about BWHI and Positive Period™. Zsanai Epps was an invited speaker for the opening program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at the Harvard University exhibition, Out for Blood: Feminine Hygiene to Menstrual Equity, on Monday, April 11, 2022. She attended with our founder, Byllye Avery, and in addition to speaking during the opening program, Zsanai and Byllye visited the Schlesinger Library’s exhibition. The exhibit featured texts, documents, and objects from the library collections that tell the story of selling “feminine hygiene” and menstrual products to women over the 20th century. The exhibit’s final section focused on the menstrual equity movement and organizations, including BWHI and our Positive Period™ program.

Signature Programs

Positive Period™

Research demonstrates that about 40% of girls and women have extremely painful PMS and menstrual cycles. Up to 8% of girls and women with PMS and menstrual issues have mental and psychological problems that affect their everyday tasks (NIH, 2021). Girls and women need support in coping and improving their health for healthier menstrual cycles. Our Positive Period™ program continues to deliver solutions to those facing menstrual insecurity. The program also raises awareness and lessens stigma through public education around menstrual health, product distribution through community partners, and offers support for policies that lead to menstrual equity. Since the program’s launch, over 30,000 women and girls have been able to access an array of menstrual products. The program expanded. Our partners include high schools, colleges/universities, and five community partners that provide services to the most vulnerable in South Carolina, Alabama, Puerto Rico, Maryland, and Washington, DC. We are expanding our Positive Period reach via corporate and international partners and developing a curriculum that includes culturally sensitive toolkits to empower those we work with as they continue conversations in their communities on menstrual equity.

Signature Programs

BWHI is now a leading voice in maternal mental health, postpartum care, community doula training, and preconception health.

Kellogg Three-Year Planning Grant

BWHI secured $1,050,000 in WKKF funding to develop three new comprehensive strategies to address health inequities for Black maternal health from preconception through the postpartum period. The three-year planning grant will create sustainable contributions in maternal health for Black mothers and families through programming, research, policy, and communication.

Additional funding secured $66,000 from Knix for HBCU Doula program. The WKKF funding will help BWHI accomplish the following results:

1. Develop an innovative workforce pipeline with Historically Black

Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by training up to 35 Black Doulas and developing preconception health and emotional health and wellness curriculum. 2. Advocate for the Jackson-Hogue stress scale for Black pregnant women in partnership with FQHC (Federally Qualified Health Centers) in the rural South, where Black maternal health disparities vary considerably. 3. Develop practical guidance to support clinics, hospitals, and nursing staff to advance health equity and anti-racist strategies for dismantling racism within the healthcare system. NOURISH - New Opportunity to Uncover our Resources, Intuition, Spirit, and Healing— partnered with Knix to provide a 12-month intensive postpartum doula training program with master facilitators to support the needs of new birthing families, save lives, and empower community doula leaders, while facilitating self-nurturing and healing. Doulas, midwives, and healthcare professionals specializing in lactation, nutrition, midwifery, holistic care, mental health, infant care, and African models of postpartum care taught the NOURISH cohort skills with practical tools to serve families throughout their respective childbearing years. NOURISH is now expanding in collaboration with MSK to HBCU campuses. We will launch our first pilot NOURISH cohort on the Morgan State campus in October of 2022.

Our Impact

• Trained 35 doulas • Assisted 80 families with postpartum doula care • Created a postpartum community doula curriculum • Created a virtual learning and engagement space for doulas to deepen their knowledge and practice

Special Initiatives

Through Special Initiatives, we deliver timely programs to address the unique needs of our community.

An 80% incidence of any medical condition is alarming and should be a major public health priority. This staggering statistic fueled the Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI) to partner with Hologic to host a multidisciplinary group of celebrities, media personalities, policymakers, doctors, faith leaders and community stakeholders for a closed roundtable discussion to understand and address the barriers that stand in the way of improved outcomes for Black women living with uterine fibroids today and in the future. CERVing Confidence is an impactful partnership between BWHI; Hologic’s Project Health Equality; and Grammy nominated, platinum artist Ciara. Leveraging Ciara’s 31.3+ socially engaged fans, we deployed an instagram video that featured content between her and her best friend discussing self-care. Ciara appeared on the Ellen Show to extend the messaging and support the full scope of the initiative raising awareness of the importance of cervical health during Cervical Health Month in January. Due to the success of this program, CERVing Confidence was extend for a second year. Taking action toward your wellness is always the behavior of a champion. BWHI encourages Black women to commit to getting the life-saving screenings essential to optimal health during football season. The 1 Million, 1 Season campaign and microsite remind Black women and those who love them to ensure that they have recently undergone screenings, such as a: • Well Woman Exam • Mammogram • Gynecological Exam Early screenings increase treatment options and in some cases give the patient an optimal recovery prognosis. BWHI and HealthyWomen launched the Reclaim Your Wellness campaign to raise awareness of obesity as a national health crisis in a manner that is free of stigma, judgment, and bias. The multifaceted campaign is focusing on educating women about healthy eating and staying active, ensuring women have access to science-based comprehensive care, bringing leaders together from across industry to make policy changes to help reinforce active and healthy living, and striving to reverse our nation’s costliest and most prevalent diseases.

Some women have trouble making time for ourselves because of family, community, and career commitments. We can alw,ays think of tons of reasons to skip important annual exams, like mammograms. From busy schedules to a fear of the results, important exams are delayed. However, the reasons for scheduling your annual mammogram are clear! Early detection of breast cancer results in an almost 100% 5-year survival rate. See Us promotes the injustice of the tobacco industry towards Black women’s health. They see us as a commodity. But we see ourselves as much more! With the help of a $1 million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we’re raising awareness that the #1 cause of death in the black community is smoke-related illness, surpassing all other causes of death, including AIDS, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Project TEACH (Trained Empowered Advocates for Community Health) empowering Black women through education and outreach to participate in and effectively engage with researchers and clinicians to increase participation of Black women in cancer-focused clinical trials. Creating the right health approaches and care for the right person is called precision medicine. Getting the right information to make that happen is the goal of the All of Us Research Program from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). To get there, we want to create the largest health database ever. By understanding people’s health, neighborhood, family, and lifestyle, researchers will have information to better understand health and disease. This information is essential to creating a healthier future for generations to come.