NY-CHAMP

Community Engagement

Community Engagement Core (CEC) — Project Summary

The Community Engagement Core (CEC) brings together community organizations, hospitals, academic teams, and public agencies across New York City and New York State to guide and support NY-CHAMP's work. Through a shared leadership model, CEC ensures that community priorities inform the research agenda and that the Center's scientific findings translate into meaningful improvements in maternal care.

CEC provides ongoing opportunities for community input, develops training efforts for both providers and birthing patients, supports local co-design activities in urban and rural regions, and coordinates dissemination, collaboration, and capacity-building initiatives that strengthen maternal health systems across the state.

Specific Aims

  1. Establish an ongoing platform — the CHARGE Board — for continuous community, hospital, academic, and agency input into NY-CHAMP's work. The Board will advise on priorities, share emerging concerns, and help guide strategies that support partnership, evidence translation, and improved maternal care.
  2. Develop and pilot a community-led training program for providers and birthing patients. This program will support hospitals in delivering respectful, person-centered care, while equipping birthing patients with tools for confidence, communication, and self-advocacy.
  3. Conduct locally driven co-design processes in selected urban and rural locations across New York State. Working with safety-net hospitals and regional partners, these activities will identify site-specific needs, map local maternal health resources, and produce design blueprints to guide adaptation and scalability of NY-CHAMP interventions.
  4. Facilitate research dissemination, collaboration, community capacity-building, and policy-relevant activities. This includes sharing scientific findings, supporting joint research efforts, providing pilot funding to community organizations, and participating in an evaluation of an emerging virtual doula care model.

CHARGE Board

Community-Hospital-Academic Research Governance (CHARGE) Board — 15 members representing diverse, complementary community organizations, hospital partners, government entities, and academic institutions from NYC and NY State.

Leadership advisory body and accountability mechanism to: 1) share perspectives on priority health concerns, needs, and strengths; 2) identify promising avenues to sustain and scale partnerships that will co-generate and translate scientific evidence; 3) provide fresh insight into arising areas of community concern, cultural competence, and ways to reduce bias.

  • NYC Health + Hospitals
  • NYS Department of Health
  • NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene
  • ACOG District II: Safe Motherhood Initiative
  • NYS: University of Rochester Medical Center
  • NYS: Nurse-Family Partnership
  • NYS: Perinatal and Infant Community Health
  • Mt. Sinai Health System
  • Northwell Health
  • Dominican Women's Development Center
  • Poppy Seed Health
  • Mexican Coalition for the Empowerment of Youth and Families, Inc.
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