Perinatal Mental Health Initiative (PMHI) Study

The Perinatal Mental Health Initiative (PMHI) aims to strengthen the vitality of our shared community through innovative, community-centered care models that are supported by collaborative, evidence-based, and community-engaged quality improvement research and evaluation.

The goal of the PMHI is to co-design data collection, analysis, and implementation to create a robust evaluation methodology for perinatal mental health work in our community that can demonstrate the efficacy of therapist and peer-led support groups complemented with therapy in reducing severity of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMAD), thereby improving both maternal and infant outcomes.

Our community partner, Tandem, provides weekly support groups to perinatal clients while offering no-cost and low-cost PMAD specialized therapy services to low-income clients during pregnancy, and for up to 1-year postpartum. These support groups are offered within the context of the PRC’s extensive wrap-around perinatal and reproductive health services. That is, clients not only have access to focused mental health services but also to free pregnancy and postpartum supplies, free menstrual supplies, childbirth education, baby play groups, postpartum doula support, midwifery-led medical care and more.