Outreach Prenatal Care Task Force
New Mexico Department of Health

We worked with this multi-disciplinary task force, charged with improving the rate of prenatal care utilization during a woman’s first trimester, for three years, from 2000-2003.

Challenges

• Develop united activities for this multidiscipline task force, consisting of public and private partners, to educate women and providers on the importance of early     prenatal care
• Educate those at risk (young women, particularly Hispanics and Native Americans) on the dangers of smoking and drinking during pregnancy
• Launch a confidential, bilingual hotline that women could call with questions
• Develop and implement distribution of several hundred thousand print   educational pieces developed and produced by the Task Force from 1994-2000

Activities

• Conducted focus group research with Hispanic and Native American women
• Developed bilingual posters for providers
• Developed bilingual rack cards to educate young women on the symptoms of pregnancy
• Developed a movie slide campaign that appeared in theaters in Albuquerque, Alamogordo, Farmington, Gallup, Las Cruces and Roswell
• Developed and placed radio spots targeting young Navajo women in Gallup, Farmington and the Four Corners area
• Developed and placed English and Spanish television spots and radio spots airing statewide
• Developed and placed interstate outdoor boards during campaign

Results

• Distributed nearly 250,000 print educational pieces during the three years of the contract
• Placed media buys totaling more than $70,000 with bonuses totaling more than $52,000, reaching approximately 75 percent of target population 2-3 times during each campaign
• Fielded average of 50 calls per month on hotline during campaign
• Planned and implemented direct mailing reaching 90 percent of state’s pediatricians, family practitioners and obstreticians in partnership with state’s major managed care organizations (MCOs)
• Helped develop and distribute more than 300 prenatal care curriculums to public and private middle and high schools

Materials developed
for this campaign:

• Posters
• Rack Cards
• Movie slide campaign
• TV and Radio spots
• Billboards
• Inventory Management System
• Materials Distribution System