Increasing Health Literacy in Low-Income Communities through Community Doula Services

The AMAR Community-Based Doula Program is a program of The Children’s Home Society of New Jersey in Trenton, New Jersey. AMAR is grounded in the HealthConnect One (HC1) evidence-based community doula curriculum and advised by a team of New Jersey medical providers. AMAR offers at least four prenatal visits and four postpartum visits for each mother enrolled in the program. The AMAR program serves 75 pregnant and postpartum women, doulas and doula trainees per year. At each prenatal and postpartum visit, the doulas share crucial prenatal and postpartum health information, breastfeeding support and education and connection to concrete resources. The Increasing Health Literacy Project will incorporate National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) materials into the training of new community doulas, the ongoing professional development of current community doulas and doula dissemination of NNLM materials to mothers at prenatal and postpartum visits; and the training of mothers to search NNLM materials.