New Social Marketing Campaign emphasizes healthier birth outcomes
The City of Milwaukee Health Department and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Zilber School of Public Health, along with Serve Marketing and Jump at the Sun Consulting, launched the Women 2 Women for Healthy Babies Project last Wednesday at United Way of Greater Milwaukee’s annual Women’s Leadership Luncheon.
The social marketing campaign was unveiled to 400 area business and community leaders at the event. The project features a series of videos of diverse women sharing their common experiences as mothers, aunts, grandmothers and neighbors. It was developed to reinforce behaviors leading to healthier births.
“In Milwaukee, 100 children died before their first birthdays in 2011. Reducing infant mortality is a top public health priority,” said Bevan Baker, City of Milwaukee Health Commissioner. “This video project represents a chance to celebrate mothers, and to learn from their experience. With this project we hope to reach the community with parenting wisdom from credible, culturally relevant sources.”
“This is our chance to reach people with messages about the importance of healthy births from members of their own community,” said Serve volunteer Creative Director, Gary Mueller. “We talked to women from a variety of backgrounds, neighborhoods and professions about their common experiences as mothers, aunts, grandmothers and neighbors.”
“The women who participated in this project discuss everything from prenatal care and breastfeeding, to the importance of involving fathers and avoiding tobacco exposure,” said Magda G. Peck, ScD, Professor and Founding Dean of the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Zilber School of Public Health. “These are issues important for all parents to be mindful of.”
“Supporting efforts that are working to reduce the number of infant deaths in our community is a priority for United Way,” said Mary Lou Young, president and CEO, United Way of Greater Milwaukee. “Our Women’s Leadership members are also passionate about supporting efforts that help our youth grow up to lead healthy lives. We are pleased to be able to help launch this project.”
United Way also presented a report to the community on its Teen Pregnancy Prevention at Wednesday’s luncheon. In 2008, United Way and the City of Milwaukee teamed up with local public health experts and set a goal to reduce teen pregnancy in this age group by 46% by 2015, one of the most ambitious teen pregnancy prevention initiatives in the nation at the time. In October 2011, the City of Milwaukee announced that the teen birth rate had dropped to its lowest level in decades. The current trend indicates that we should be on track to reach our goal.
Aurora Health Care sponsored United Way’s Women’s Leadership luncheon and also funded a Healthy Girls Challenge Grant during United Way’s 2011 Community Campaign to match donations directed to United Way’s Healthy Girls programs which address teen pregnancy prevention and sexual violence.
