This project is led by two community organizations, Black Mamas ATX (BMATX) & Healing Hands Community Doula Project (HHCDP). Healthy Start Central Texas (HSCT) provides a continuum of perinatal services and addresses gaps in maternal health services for Black women by increasing the perinatal support service workforce. It also provides holistic, culturally congruent perinatal care through community-based, perinatal support services which includes full-spectrum doula support, birth education, case management, mental health support, and parent education.  

The primary goals of this grant and program are as follows: 

1. Expand pre-existing multi-sectoral collaborative networks to establish a community consortium with maternal health and infant health stakeholders. 
2. Expand access to perinatal support services for Black and Latina women and birthing persons in Central Texas. 
3. Improve Black maternal and infant outcomes in Central Texas based on pre-specified, Healthy Start benchmarks: access to prenatal and postpartum healthcare, breastfeeding rates, depression screening and mental health service referrals, health behaviors during the perinatal period, infant care, and infant healthcare access. 

As the evaluator of HSCT, my role on the grant includes technical assistance with data infrastructure, data collection, and data analysis. Specifically, I lead the program evaluation, which includes the collection of quantitative and qualitative data from clients, HSCT staff, and community stakeholders. Our program evaluation is informed by implementation science frameworks, specifically RE-AIM and CFIR. 

Project Publications

The first publication associated with this project describes the establishment of the Maternal Health Equity Collaborative, which applied for and received a 5-year, multi-million-dollar HRSA grant to establish Healthy Start Central Texas. This article is open access and available at the link below. 

Citation: Blake, K., Turner, D., Rousell, J., VanBrakle, C., McDonald, R., Miles, M., Khullar, R., Petruzzi, L. (2026). The Maternal Health Equity Collaborative: An Innovative Community Model of Care in Central Texas. Health Equity. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/24731242261428405 

Project Presentations 

INSPIRE Lab research assistant, Ragini Khullar, co-presented with Darline Turner, co-director of Healthy Start Central Texas and Executive Director of Healing Hands Community Birthing Project at the 2026 Association of Child and Maternal Health Programs Conference. They presented on their implementation since receiving initial funding in June 2024 and preliminary evaluation findings from the first year and half.  

Citation: Petruzzi, L., Khullar, R., Blake, K., Turner, D., Backus, E. & Furr, T. “The Black Solidarity Model: A Community-Led Approach to Perinatal Health in Central Texas.” Presenter at the Association of Child and Maternal Health Programs Conference. March 2026.