Hear Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, IL-14 speak with Dr. Sally Chan of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania on the current state of maternal health and ways that researchers and communities members can work with policymakers to advance maternal health innovations.

Hear Anjelica D. Sanders, Chief of Staff for PA State Representative Morgan Cephas, speak with Dr. Aasta Mehta, MD, MPP of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health on the current state of maternal health within Pennsylvania and ways that researchers and communities members can work with policymakers to advance maternal health innovations.

In this panel, speakers from across the health communication landscape, Abike James, MD, MPH, Alexia Doumbouya, MSL, CBE, Certified Doula, & Dr. Franziska Haydanek, DO, FACOG, discuss the impact of misinformation in maternal health. Speakers discuss how misinformation is spread, its impact on patients and practitioners, how misinformation creates mistrust, and preemptive and corrective measures individuals across the maternal health spectrum can take.

Hear as Dr. Amanda Flicker, MD, CPE, FACOG discusses ways in which investigators can impact policies outside of a formal government space, including clinical care practices and hospital system policies.

In this presentation, Dr. Nicole Thomas, Ed.D., MBA, discusses strategies that research teams can leverage to build and sustain meaningful connections with their partners and target audience early in their research projects, facilitating dissemination at later stages in the project.

Adaptations are the degree to which an effective practice or implementation strategy changes to suit the needs of a local setting or priority population (Geng et al., 2023). The process of making adaptations should be thoughtful and deliberate, with the goal of improving the fit or effectiveness in a given context (Movsisyan et al., 2019; Wiltsey Stirman et al., 2019). Adaptations are necessary for the successful adoption and sustainment of evidence-based practices (Kilbourne et al., 2024).

Misbeliefs are difficult to change once established because they are linked to our innate tendency to protect our preexisting attitudes. We are motivated to resist information inconsistent with our existing beliefs to avoid cognitive dissonance, a feeling of mental discomfort due to conflicting attitudes or beliefs; this is why counterarguing and defensive behavior occurs. Defensive reactions toward a message correction can diminish the correction effects. However, the more we care about an issue, the more likely we are to continue updating our knowledge, especially when factual correction is offered.

Four strategies that can help counter misinformed beliefs are prebunking, debunking, narrative messaging, and two-sided messaging.

The Penn Community Engagement and Research Core (CEAR) offers a free, online training course focused on strengthening skills in human subject research and identifying the responsibilities of community-based researchers.

To understand the research needs of the IMPROVE Centers of Excellence (CoEs), AMETHIST conducted a baseline survey in Year 1 and a follow-up survey in Year 2, covering the following areas: 

• Implementation science design, methods, and analysis plans
• Incorporation of community and stakeholder engagement
• Policy, dissemination, and communication plans
• Training and capacity building, opportunities, and needs 

The AMETHIST@Penn YouTube channel is home to recordings of past seminars, workshops, and forums hosted by various researchers and experts within AMETHIST and the University of Pennsylvania.

The AMETHIST@Penn Training Core offers 20-minute office hour slots for trainees involved with an IMPROVE Center of Excellence or IMPROVE Community Implementation Program site. Trainees can receive assistance with Individual Development Plan (IDP) creation and feedback, career development award guidance, or advice on the design and conduct of a small-scale implementation project, from our AMETHIST Training Core Co-Leads or Co-Investigators. 

Trainees may include post-docs, undergraduate or medical students, junior faculty/early-stage investigators (ESIs), or anyone in a structured training program.

The AMETHIST@Penn Engagement Enhancement Collaborative (EEC) compiled a report on considerations for community-engaged research with CoE sites, including themes and takeaways. Topics covered in Year 1 include:

• Building trust within Black communities
• Creatively and authentically developing equal research partnerships with communities
• Engaging Indigenous populations and incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing 

Why Social Media Matters for Improving Maternal Health

• Up to 80% of U.S. adults get health information online (Rutten et al., 2019) and 33% of U.S. adults use social media for health information—social media use rates are higher among Black, Hispanic, and younger populations (Pew Research Center, 2024).
• Getting health information on social media is common and occurs actively (i.e., actively seeking it out) and passively (e.g., coming across a health ad on your feed without seeking it out) (Lim et al., 2022)
• 52% of Americans who have tried a health trend, tool or approach in the past year they found on social media (Healthline; State of Consumer HealthSurvey, 2024)
• Underrepresented birthing people often turn to platforms like TikTok and Instagram when traditional health systems feel inaccessible.
• Social media democratizes health information but also amplifies misinformation and emotional fear-based messaging. Researchers must intervene

Effectively communicating with policymakers is essential to advancing maternal health policies, especially those that address disparities and promote health empowerment. This resource equips researchers,advocates, and public health professionals with persuasive strategies grounded in communication theory and practical experience to ensure their voices are heard and their messages resonate.

Black, Indigenous, and other historically marginalized communities continue to face disproportionate maternal mortality and morbidity. Policymakers have the power to implement structural changes, but they rely on clear, compelling, and actionable communication to guide their decisions.

Whether you're preparing to meet with a legislator, drafting a policy brief, or presenting your research to decision-makers, this guide will help you:

• Frame maternal health issues in a way that moves people to act.
• Communicate with clarity and confidence.
• Promote policies that center empowerment and save lives.

Centers of Excellence are invited to fill out and submit this form on the IMPROVE Collaboration Portal, requesting support on design methodologies or other aspects of a project. The AMETHIST@Penn Design Core will then match Center members with consultants whose research expertise can best speak to CoEs’ project needs. You may also email AMETHIST@pennmedicine.upenn.edu directly to schedule a consult.

The Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science (CTRIS) is the strategic focal point within NHLBI to stimulate rigorous domestic and global dissemination and implementation research that advances the adoption, spread, and scale of evidence-based interventions for the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders in clinical and public health settings in the United States and abroad.

PISCE’s mission is to advance the science and practice of implementation by building capacity, driving methodological innovation, fostering collaboration, and encouraging community. Offerings include tailored consultation and collaboration to support the development of research to guide the implementation of evidence-based interventions across a range of healthcare settings, hosting educational offerings for both the next generation of researchers as well as established investigators through its annual Implementation Science Institute attended by scholars within and outside of Penn and CHOP, methodology workshops, five additional graduate level courses on Implementation Science at Penn, and an Implementation Science Certificate Program. PISCE was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 and currently has over 400 affiliated members across Penn and CHOP. PISCE is currently overseen by Executive Director Dr. Courtney Benjamin Wolk.

This form provides a semi-structured approach to documenting observations, challenges, and facilitators that may arise during an implementation study. The goal of this form is to enable teams to gather insights into factors influencing the implementation of
their specific intervention without placing additional burden on staff or requiring extensive resources. It may be particularly useful for teams with limited capacity to conduct interviews or surveys but who wish to systematically consider and document key implementation factors.

The instructions and example document are available along with a blank template. 

Liberatory design is a problem-solving method and practice that centers equity when designing solutions. At its core, it pushes designers to engage in deep self-awareness practices that liberate them from habits that perpetuate inequity. It also shifts the power within design by centering the voices of those the solution is being designed for. The practice is broken into “mindsets” and “modes”.

The practice of liberatory design can provide IMPROVE investigators with useful guidance on how to increase their awareness of these greater influences on equity and help them respectfully utilize community voices to understand the greater landscape in which the project exists. For some IMPROVE investigators, it may provide a structure with which to align their existing process of equity engagement

Qualitative methods, rooted in social sciences like anthropology and sociology, are essential for understanding the complex dynamics of maternal health. Qualitative research captures the depth of human experiences–making it ideal for exploring why certain interventions succeed or fail, how pregnant people experience care, and how healthcare providers deliver care. 

8 Key Features:

1. Theory-Guided: Uses data-supported theories like the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) to organize and analyze the research.
2. Scheduled Data Collection: Gathers data at specific times (e.g., before, during, and after implementation).
3. Mixed Methods: Combines both qualitative (e.g., interviews) and quantitative (e.g., surveys, observational data) approaches.
4. Problem-Focused: Aims to solve real-world issues, like improving access to prenatal care.
5. Equity-Driven: Focuses on fairness, research addresses the needs of underserved populations.
6. Involving Collaborators: Includes input from healthcare providers, patients, and administrators.
7. Flexible Analysis: Uses both open-ended and structured approaches to analyze the data.
8. Interdisciplinary: Brings together ideas from different fields like medicine, public health, and social sciences.