Urban Women's Health (UWH)
In 2003, CityMatCH established the Urban Women's Health Subcommittee, the organization began an effort to describe the health status of urban women and build the capacity of our membership to advance it. Efforts to improve the health of urban women presented significant challenges - for although much is known about the health of women, the practice of public health and the health impact of living in urban environments - less has known about the intersection of these three subjects: urban women's health.

A series of issue briefs were developed between 2003-2005, to assist members in learning about fundamental issues affecting the health of women, reviewing the leading health topics impacting urban women, and most importantly, taking action to ensure healthy urban women. A Compendium of Promising Practices in Urban Women's Health was also completed in the Spring of 2005.

As a group, the series of Urban Women's Health (UWH) Publications looked beyond reproductive health to address the health of urban women across the lifespan. Each was written in collaboration with consultant, Helene Kent, and each focused on issues (Overview of Urban Women's Health, Resources and Tools and Leadership) defined by the Urban Women's Health Subcommittee, which concluded its activities in 2005.

AMCHP/CityMatCH Women's Health Partnership
With funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) and the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), AMCHP and CityMatCH aim to build state and local capacity to promote safe motherhood and enhance women's health before, during and after pregnancy. To address this important goal, the two organizations have formed a Women's Health Partnership to explore how to build the knowledge base, gather promising strategies, develop tools and influence policies to improve health for women of reproductive age. We aim to identify unique opportunities for state and local MCH programs to improve women's health during preconception and interconception periods. Initial efforts will focus on how to achieve healthy weight in women of reproductive age.

This paper outlines a number of factors that influence wome's health and which must be considered when developing a Women's Preventive Health Framework.

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Undoing Racism in Public Health
A Special Report to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Despite considerable efforts, racial and ethnic disparities in health persist and are even increasing in some areas. Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities is a sustained, strategic priority in CityMatCH's work with nearly 150 member local health departments whose jurisdictions include the largest 200 cities and major metropolitan areas in the nation.

This report aims to

  • Examine the scientific basis for racism as a determinant of health status and health disparities, and institutional racism manifests in health care and health departments;
  • Provide an overview of existing directions, options and resources for "Undoing Racism;" and,
  • Outline a series of activities for a local public health-based Undoing Racism initiative, ranging from awareness to action.

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Understanding Racism
How is the experience of racism akin to the proper care and feeding of flowers?

An allegory can help to explain the impacts of racism in our society. "A gardener has two flower boxes, one which she knows to contain rich, fertile soil and the other which she knows to contain poor, rocky soil. She has seed for the same kind of flower, except some of the seed will produce pink blossoms and some of the seed will produce red blossoms. The gardener prefers red over pink, so she puts the red seed in the rich, fertile soil and the pink seed in the poor, rocky soil. Three weeks later, the red flowers look strong and healthy while the pink flowers look scrawny and scraggly. When fall comes, those flowers go to seed. The next year the same thing happens, and then those flowers go to seed. Year after year, the rains water, the sun shines, and the same thing happens. Finally, ten years later..."

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