NACCHO’s Bridging Preparedness, Infectious Disease, Maternal-Child Health and Birth Defects within Cities and Counties project supports public health and clinical care partnerships at the local level to increase local jurisdictions’ ability to protect, respond, and support pregnant people and their infants from emerging threats, specifically COVID-19.

To facilitate the coordination and planning of these efforts, NACCHO is looking to expand the Maternal-Child, Infectious Disease, and Preparedness (MIP) Collaborative Workgroup, which formed last year to support this work. This year the Ad-Hoc MIP Collaborative Workgroup will serve as an interdisciplinary forum to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on MCH populations.

Membership: The MIP Collaborative Workgroup will be comprised of local health department officials and health department staff with expertise and interest in the intersectionality of preparedness, infectious disease, maternal-child health, and/or birth defects. Members from targeted national partner organizations will also be invited to participate. We welcome all qualified persons to apply; however, we encourage applications from the midwest and western US. New and existing members of other NACCHO workgroups are invited to apply.

Time Commitment: This workgroup term we are implementing a mixed-method engagement approach. We will integrate regular groups calls, 1:1 conversation, surveys, resource reviews, and other forms of engagement. We hope that this approach provides more opportunity for members to participate in workgroup activities. In addition, members will be requested to contribute to reviewing tools, resources, best practices, and other programmatic materials. The workgroup term is through August 31, 2021. Continuance of the workgroup beyond this term period is dependent upon available funding.

If you are interested in joining the MIP Collaborative Workgroup, please contact Adele Appiah at [email protected] by August 30 with a brief description of your experience and the issue(s) specific to COVID-19 and maternal and child health that you are interested in addressing on the workgroup.