Center for Latina Maternal & Family Health Research

Mission
Meet the Team
Research Assistants and Staff
Meet the Funders
Featured Projects
Useful Resources for Maternal and Family Mental Health

Mission

The overall mission of the center will be to improve the health of Latino families through research and service. We seek to improve public awareness, health service delivery, and culturally responsive research for vulnerable populations of Latinas and their families. We seek interdisciplinary collaboration between social scientists, community organizations, and health care providers and scholars.

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Meet the Team

The LMFHRC is a college level research and community engagement research center. The center is unique in that it is a partnership between academia and community. The directors of the center work together to identify funding opportunities that will foster research and practice that empowers low-income Latino communities to improve mental and physical health. Research projects, community programs and training opportunities that focus on awareness and intervention for improved health outcomes are encouraged.

GCSW Co-Director: McClain Sampson, Ph.D Assistant Professor, Graduate College of Social Work (GCSW). Dr. Sampson’s overarching research interest is maternal health promotion. Dr. Sampson’s current research focuses on the creation of a culturally relevant intervention for postpartum depression among low-income Latinas. She is currently the lead investigator for a study funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that will explore the feasibility of implementing her home based intervention to prevent postpartum depression in six various sites across the country. The intervention was informed by her prior studies which explored feasibility of the intervention and cultural beliefs of treatment seeking. Dr. Sampson is also the Project Director of the HRSA Behavioral Health Workforce Education Training Grant. To this end, all of her work focuses on improving behavioral health services through intervention development and training. Dr. Sampson teaches Behavioral Health in Integrated Care Settings and Qualitative Research Methods at the GCSW.

Community Based Co-Director: Diana N. Derige, DrPH is the national director of health initiatives at Urban Strategies, where she leads the national health strategy development, program implementation and evaluation of the organization’s broad health equity agenda. Prior to joining Urban Strategies, Diana was a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where she supported local and national investment by serving as a convener, collaborator and catalyst, responsible for nurturing opportunities for affecting positive systemic change in communities. Over the past fifteen years, Diana has designed and managed several private philanthropic, government, and non-profit programs. Throughout her career, she has concentrated on promoting public health and social equity for marginalized communities. She has held positions as a program officer for The Chicago Community Trust, state coordinator for the Ounce of Prevention Fund and program manager for the Illinois Public Health Institute. Diana also has been a fellow for the National Hispana Leadership Institute, Mid-America Regional Public Health Leadership Institute and the University of Michigan’s HIV/AIDS Intervention, South Africa. Diana holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and women’s studies and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan and a doctorate of public health from the University of North Carolina. She also holds a certificate in executive education from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and completed a leadership development program through the Center for Creative Leadership-Europe in Brussels, Belgium.

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Research Assistants and Staff

Students:

Rebecca Mauldin, MSW	Yu (“Jessica”) Miao, MPH	Flor Avellaneda, MSW
Grant Coordinator:

Rachel Fulkerson

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Meet the Funders

W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded the “Culturally Responsive Intervention to Improve Maternal and Child Wellbeing”. P3034645 June 2016-May 2018.

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Community Partner

Urban Strategies mission is to tool, connect, and resource grassroots organizations to serve children and families in need. Our diverse staff have extensive experience working with and through faith-based and community organizations to affect sustainable change. Urban Strategies has designed and implemented numerous initiatives designed to enhance the future of low-income individuals and neighborhoods. This knowledge and experience has been almost exclusively focused on communities of color and organizations indigenous to communities in need. Urban Strategies’ cultural competency is a significant factor in impacting the effectiveness of organizations served. Urban Strategies provides expertise and on the ground training and data collection as part of their contribution to the center.

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Featured Projects

Culturally Responsive Intervention to Improve Maternal and Child Wellbeing (Principal Investigator: Sampson): This two year project aims to include Latina mothers and community members in the adaptation of a home visiting intervention to decrease postpartum depression developed by Dr. Sampson. The project has two phases: Phase 1 includes focus groups with mothers and family members at 6 agency sites across the country (2 in Texas). Phase 2 includes the delivery of the intervention (“PST4PPD”) by promatoras to Latina mothers who have scored high for postpartum depression symptoms. The intervention can be delivered in English or Spanish.

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