Data Verification

Living in low-income communities can make it difficult for a person to receive or have access to resources of all kinds. The most vulnerable tend to find it more difficult to access resources that require medical attention or of any professional help. Being pregnant comes with many challenges, especially if the woman does not have support or can not afford to receive the appropriate professional help. Most of the time, women are not aware they may need help because they have the misconception that many symptoms might be normal due to their prenatal condition. We believe it is very important to educate everyone that maternal health is as important as physical, emotional, and mental health. Unfortunately, during many occasions, the need for coping with maternal health is not as seen as important because people lack the education on how to properly look out for those warning signals.

As a group we decided to partner up and work with a non-profit organization Maternal Mental Health Now. Our goal is to help spread awareness on the importance of maternal mental health before and after giving birth. When a woman does not have good maternal health, it may also affect her family and friends. This is why we took on the task of updating the contact and services of clinics listed on the organization’s resource directory. As a group, we felt it was very important for a prospective mother along with her family to have access to a trustful directory. As low-income students, we are aware that it can sometimes be hesitant to seek help due to financial burdens. As we go in depth we will discuss our findings and obstacles when we were validating the clinical information from the directory, how the Coronavirus was a big obstacle for us to validate information during these times, and the importance on maternal health according to different sources. 

Guiding Question and Hypothesis  

Our guiding question for this project is to explore how having an accurate and updated resource directory can help mothers find the right provider for them. So how can we ensure accurate referrals from the Maternal Mental Health NOW Data set to health care providers for prospective new mothers? Having an accurate resource directory that is updated will result in mothers successfully receiving the correct information from Maternal Mental Health NOW. Which will lead them to a healthy pregnancy and postpartum experience.

The variables we worked with were: the providers name, contact email, whether it is licensed in different areas, the year it was trained by Maternal Mental Health NOW, services, languages, insurance, age, telehealth, phone number, and address. All these variables are essential to mothers to have a place and location convenient to them. Mothers should also be able to explore which provider offers the best financial support to their family. Due to Covid-19 many providers have been changing and have been offering telehealth which will help mothers to continue receiving help. All providers offer different services to their communities and it is important to continue to keep this information updated so people can use them. Whether they were trained by Maternal Mental Health NOW is important to know whether they have the qualifications to care for new mothers. Many people won’t look or ask for help if there’s a language barrier so it’s important for mothers to know what languages each provider has. 

Methods

Maternal Mental Health NOW serves Los Angeles county that has a population of over 10 million. With a majority of the population Hispanic most providers offer Spanish as a language. Their website provides locations throughout Los Angeles who range from low to high income communities. To remove barriers to the prevention, screening, and treatment of prenatal and postpartum depression in Los Angeles County. Maternal Mental Health NOW was formed in February 2007 as the Los Angeles County Perinatal Mental Health Task Force. The Task Force was the result of a commitment by the Los Angeles County Office of the Public Defender and the leadership efforts of Special Counsel/Legislative Analyst Kimberly Wong, a survivor of severe postpartum depression. They receive support from private foundations, First 5 LA, the Los Angeles County Board ofSupervisors and individual donors. They have over 200 volunteers in 50 public, private, and community agencies. They want all new moms to be screened for maternal depression and anxiety and for those who are suffering to receive proper treatment. 

The target population of the Maternal Mental Health NOW’s services are women and their offspring who are at high-risk for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders due to multiple and cumulative stressors, such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, lack of health insurance, immigration status, poor social support and chronic illness, and co-occurring conditions, such as substance abuse and domestic violence. By verifying the location information we ensure mothers can receive treatment. 

In the article  Maternal perinatal mental health and little one and toddler neurodevelopment - Evidence from low and middle-profits countries  describe an extensive lack of expertise of maternal mental health and its impact on child improvement in low- and middle-profits countries (LAMICs). The article mentions that the systematic evaluation was to research evidence for various maternal perinatal mental health issues and their affiliation with distinctive domain names of infant and toddlers neurodevelopment within their first two postnatal years in LAMICs. The article mentions the comprehensive literature search that was carried out within six databases from Jan 1990–April 2019. The research was narratively synthesized twenty-four studies, nine cross sectional and fifteen longitudinal cohort research, had been included. Three studies were carried out in low-income, eleven in lower-middle-earnings and ten in upper-middle-profits nations. 

The studies assessed maternal mental health postnatally and fourteen of those twenty-two research found a substantial association with infant and toddler neurodevelopment. Five of the ten research reporting on exposure to prenatal mental health discovered a tremendous affiliation. According to this assessment the most commonplace maternal mental health disorder studied became depression, while the primary neurodevelopmental consequences assessed were motor, cognitive and language development. Meta-analysis couldn't be conducted because of the variability in the mentioned maternal mental health problems and the special instances of evaluation of exposures and outcomes. Maternal perinatal mental health problems and their association with distinctive domains of neurodevelopment in LAMICs continues to be inconclusive due to a restrained quantity of papers. Mother-infants dyads in LAMICs are exposed to more than one and cumulative risk factors and causal pathways between maternal mental fitness and little one neurodevelopment are nonetheless poorly understood. This article shows that the work of Maternal Mental Health NOW will have effects on the mothers and the first years of a toddlers life. It's important for mothers to receive the right treatment for a healthy development. The information on the resource directory must be accurate throughout the community in order for all to receive viable information that can help mothers and infants develop. 

In the article Associations Between Maternal Mental Health and Child Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Does Prenatal Mental Health Matter? by  Julie A. Leis ,  Jon Heron ,  Elizabeth A. Stuart , and  Tamar Mendelson , the authors try to connect the long term effects with prenatal depression in children in a study. This study was a way to examine the impact of elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety during pregnancy on offspring emotional and behavioral problems in mid to late childhood. For this study the researchers sought to determine the influence of symptoms of prenatal depression and prenatal anxiety on child emotional and behavioral problems. The study involved 2,891 women and their children (49 % male) (51% female), from a prospective, community-based, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. There were three hypotheses, the first hypothesis was that elevated symptoms of (1) prenatal depression and (2) prenatal anxiety will each be significantly associated with offspring emotional and behavioral problems. The third hypothesis was that, compared with mothers who have prenatal depression or anxiety only, those with elevated symptoms of both prenatal depression and prenatal anxiety will be more likely to have offspring with emotional and behavioral problems.

Regarding the first hypothesis, the author’s found that elevated symptoms of prenatal depression predicted an increase in total offspring emotional and behavioral problems according to mothers’ reports. Regarding the second hypothesis, the authors found that the mothers of children exposed to elevated symptoms of anxiety during pregnancy also reported an increase in offspring total difficulties after controlling for subsequent maternal mental health and sociodemographic and psycho-social characteristics. For the third hypothesis, the authors found that children of mothers with elevated symptoms of both prenatal depression and prenatal anxiety were no more likely to have increased emotional and behavioral problems than children of mothers with elevated symptoms of prenatal depression or prenatal anxiety alone. This article highlights how important treatment is so children have less symptoms throughout their development so that they live a life with no learning barriers. Since treatment and help is important, having access to and being confident in the help around is a key factor in our project and goal. As we update the resource directory, more mothers will receive the help they need.

The main goal of this project/experiment was to help spread awareness about the importance of maternal health in women. Especially in low-income communities, where there are usually financial burdens. The lack of education and resources on this important topic is what persuaded us as a group to partner up with the non profit organization Maternal Mental Health Now. This organization specializes in helping women get screened and receive help for prenatal and postpartum depression. Most of the clinics that the organization is associated with accepts different types of insurance, fee waivers, or payment plans. As a group we decided to validate the contact information from each provider to ensure women have access to the services offered at a location nearby them. This was not an easy task, since we are currently going through a pandemic, which caused many medical offices and establishments to close or offer their services remotely. We tried validating the majority of the providers listed on the organization’s resource directory, but it was not possible. We had some offices where we left a message requesting information, but never received a call back, offices that did not even want to provide us with their contact information, or phone operators that did not have an option to request information. It was definitely not easy making more than ten calls a day, but it was worth everything we went through. As a group, it was our goal to validate as much information possible for the resource directory. We knew this information was going to help a prospective mother in the future for her and her baby to be healthy. The information we were able to validate will help better serve mothers and families that are in need of services in the nearest future. The information we gained can also be acquired to help reach to others and educate them on the importance of maternity health. Just like our peer review journals have done so as well.