In South Seattle, HAI collaborated with community-led efforts to improve and adapt maternal reproductive and mental health care within East African immigrant and refugee communities.

Southeast Seattle reports the highest rates of preterm/low birthweight babies, cesarean births, women receiving inadequate perinatal care and unmet mental health needs in Washington state. HAI’s community partners, including the Somali Health Board, Parent Trust, Mama Amaan, and Neighborcare Health are building the evidence for culturally-adapted solutions to these inequitable health outcomes facing this underserved community, which includes much of Seattle and South King County’s East African immigrant and refugee population.

Starting in 2018, a University of Washington Population Health Initiative (UW PHI) grant brought together a collaboration of Somali researchers from the Somali Health Board, UW faculty from Anthropology, Global Health, Social Work, Pediatrics and Psychiatry, and HAI to pilot mother-to-mother perinatal groups and doula visits by Somali providers for Somali families. The Mama Amaan Project—meaning safe motherhood in Somali—employed a community-based and community-driven participatory research model to identify, test, and roll-out adapted interventions.

Starting in 2020, the Mama Amaan team proposed and was awarded additional funding from UW PHI to apply a similar approach aimed at reducing the burden of COVID-19 on mothers and families in these same communities. The Healing Heart and Soul feasibility study focused on homebased self-monitoring and self-reporting of blood pressure, stress, and depression in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 prevention measures, including reduced in-person clinical care.    

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