National Public Health Week (NPHW) takes place April 1-7 this year, and this year’s theme is “Protecting, Connecting and Thriving: We Are All Public Health.”
Public health is more than just health care. It includes building communities free from pollution, with safe food and water and strong personal relationships.
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This Women’s History Month we are featuring current and former DHEC employees who have made an impact in our state.
Today we feature, Shirley James, South Carolina’s first Nurse Practitioner.
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DHEC’s Environmental Justice Strong program, or EJ Strong, in collaboration with the University of South Carolina’s South Carolina Section of the American Water Works Association (SCAWWA) and Water Environment Association of South Carolina (WEASC) Carolina Water Club Student Chapter, recently initiated a water monitoring endeavor in partnership with students from Lower Richland High School as part of the Lower Richland’s Citizens Earning and Learning Initiative.
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This Women’s History Month we are featuring current and former DHEC employees who have made an impact in our state.
Today we feature Dr. Katherine Richardson, Regional Medical Director for the Lowcountry.
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Congratulations to DHEC’s Lowcountry WIC Team who recently had an initiative featured in the Journal of Perinatology!
In 2022, the Lowcountry WIC Service on Wheels (SoW) partnered with the children’s hospital at MUSC in Charleston to offer weekly intake appointments to moms with infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. (NICU). The hospital was selected for a study to evaluate a single center quality improvement (QI) collaborative designed to increase the provision of mother’s own milk (MOM) at discharge to premature infants through evidence-based practices while targeting perinatal health disparities.
This partnership helped improve health equity and access to hospital-grade pumps, and the collaborative increased the percentage of preterm infants receiving MOM at discharge and reduced the number of mothers who discontinue pumping during the NICU hospitalization.
According to the article, “to eliminate transportation barriers, the WIC SOW parked at the hospital entrance and functioned as a mobile clinic for the initial WIC appointment for mothers who qualify for services. Services rendered included a monetary benefit card, maternal health screenings and a Medela Symphony® HGP [breast pump]. Before this study, mothers were anecdotally reporting waiting 2–3 weeks after discharge to obtain pumps from WIC at their local offices.”
Study details and results were published in the December 20, 2023, edition of the Journal of Perinatology.
The SoW program eliminates transportation barriers for parents, guardians, and caretakers, making it easier for them to receive services. It is a mobile unit that provides full WIC services in convenient locations for families in a shorter time and without sitting in a waiting room.
To see if the WIC van will be coming near you, visit https://scdhec.gov/health/women-infants-children-wic-nutrition-program/wic-mobile-van-calendars
Learn more about WIC in South Carolina at scdhec.gov/wic.
Live Healthy S.C. 