About
To assist individuals, providers, and organizations to better serve African Americans, who experience maternal and infant mortality in Detroit and Southeast Michigan, resulting in improved quality of care and improved birth outcomes.
Who is D-HEER?
Detroit Health Equity Education Resource (D-HEER) is an initiative of the Southeast Michigan Perinatal Quality Improvement Coalition (SEMPQIC), which serves as the Regional Perinatal Quality Collaborative for Wayne (including Detroit), Macomb, and Oakland counties. SEMPQIC was founded in 2015 with the mission of creating a coordinated, equitable, and sustainable network for perinatal care based on best practices and evidence-based strategies that improve birth outcomes for all babies born in southeast Michigan and narrow the disparity between black and white births including adverse maternal, perinatal, and infant outcomes, including infant mortality.
The development and direction of D-HEER is led by the Collective Impact Advisory Committee comprised of area health professionals, medical students, administrators, community-based organizations, and others. In addition to supporting the overall direction and development of the site, Advisory Committee members play a key role in procuring and approving resources, directing the data for the dashboard, and developing strategies for collaborating on the use of website materials.
About D-HEER
The Detroit Health Equity Education Resource (D-HEER) was created out of a need to address the alarming rates of infant and maternal mortality in Black and Brown Detroit residents by promoting actions toward health equity in the perinatal system of care. It is a product of SEMPQIC, the Michigan regional perinatal quality collaborative for Region 10, which includes Wayne (including Detroit), Macomb and Oakland counties. D-HEER serves as a platform for health professionals to easily access relevant and timely health equity related resources to equip organizational capacity building needed to advance health equity. While the site has been developed with this specific need in mind, the resources reflect various aspects of health equity and are not exclusive to maternal and child health. In addition to providing professional capacity building health equity materials, the D-HEER website also includes a unique Data Dashboard that offers foundational data to reflect the social and environmental impact on Detroit residents that supports the need for using a health equity lens to best serve Black and Brown people at high-risk for negative health outcomes, such as maternal and infant mortality.
Goals
Information
Provide relevant information about systemic racism and care delivery to increase knowledge of health equity and the impacts of racism to improve the perinatal care system, especially for populations with disparate birth outcomes.
Tools
Increase access to health equity tools and resources that improve provider behaviors to reduce bias in healthcare.
Collective Impact
Engage users through collective impact to equip individual and organizational capacity building needed to advance health equity in the perinatal care of Black and Brown women and families.
Sustainability
Create infrastructure for promoting a culture of health equity that serves as a model for expansion regionally and statewide.
Who Should Use the D-HEER website?
D-HEER is a free resource for perinatal stakeholders, health professionals and parent groups. The content of the site is curated to inform, educate, and advocate for communities that experience high levels of infant and maternal mortality and severe morbidity. We invite all individuals and organizations desiring to address racism, health disparities, and health outcome inequities to use this site. The website is currently focused on metrics related to the city of Detroit with plans for expanding to the rest of the southeast Michigan region, and then statewide, as we continue to grow.
Why Use D-HEER?
When you use D-HEER you open your access to tools, articles, books, videos and more with information on health equity. You will be able to use the data dashboard to measure progress and guide your thinking about how you can impact the health of Detroiters and the many social and environmental influences that impact the health of Black and Brown people. You will be able to learn how others use the materials in this site and offer input of their use to foster collaboration. Users can also provide feedback to the website host for improvements.
D-HEER Collective Impact Advisory Committee
Zahra Alburkat
WSU Medical Student and Mothers in Medicine
Dena Austin
Blue Care Complete
Winona Bymun, RDN, PMP, CSM
Detroit Food Policy Council
Jennifer Campbell, MPH, PhD.
Individual/Oak Grove AME Church
Desiree Cooper
Author
Gwendolyn Daniels, DPN, MSN, RN
Institute for Population Health
Patricia Ferguson, MD
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Renay Gagleard, DNP, MSN, RNBC
St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital
Elon Geffrard
Michigan Public Health Institute and Birth Detroit
Lonias Gilmore, MPH
Michigan Department of Health & Human Services
Sue Gough, RN
UnitedHealthcare
Kiddada Green, MAT
Black Mothers Breastfeeding Association
Sonia Hassan, MD
Make Your Date and Wayne State University Medical School
Priscilla Holland
WSU Medical Student and Mothers in Medicine
Teresa Holtrop, MD, FAAP
Kids Health Connection
Dashuna Johnson
Mother’s Friend MIHP
Theodore Jones, MD
Beaumont Health
Reverend Judith West
Mayflower Congregational Church and MOSES
Neefesha Marion
Ascension Southeast Michigan
Delonda McCullum
United Way of Southeastern Michigan
Gaylotta Murray
Great Start Wayne
Gwendolyn Norman, PhD, MPH, BSN
Wayne State University
Paula Schreck, MD, IBCLC, FABM
Ascension Southeast Michigan
Amy Zaagman
Michigan Council for Maternal & Child Health