Human milk feeding positively impacts infant and maternal health, especially during public health emergencies. However, despite solid evidence from decades of infant feeding research establishing the importance of human milk and the risks of breast milk substitutes, there continues to be a failure to recognize the critical impact of lactation support as an overall health promotion strategy.

Including chest/breastfeeding indicators and efforts in county-wide community health assessments and community health improvement plans (CHA/CHIP) is a pivotal opportunity to improve population health and tackle health inequities. Partnerships with other community organizations enable leveraging multi-organizational resources, skills, and policies, and systems to expand service capacity and integrate breastfeeding support into other public health programs.

You will hear from special guest speakers: Jolynn Dowling; MSN, APRN, NNP-BC, IBCLC, who contributed to the Lactation as a Foundational Strategy for Health Promotion book, Nandi Marshall, DrPH, MPH, CHES, from Healthy Savannah (GA), a CDC Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) recipient, about their work to implement lactation support activities to prevent chronic diseases and their community voice assessment project, and from Allison Wilson, MPH, CLC, and Brenda Rodriguez, MSOL, RD, CLC, from Jefferson County Public Health (CO), about their work to integrate Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies into county preparedness plan and their robust community engagement of families and partners.

Learning Objectives:

Register Here: https://bit.ly/CommunityHealthCoC