Officers help raise health standards
Aiken, S.C., Public Safety Officer Chico Nieves swings himself off his police cruiser, a 21-speed bicycle, and says hello to his new friends in a public housing project.
Across the street a woman waves happily and yells loud enough for two blocks of homes to hear, “Hey Chico, I did what you said. I got my tubes tied!”
When most people think about police departments, they think in terms of speeding tickets, robberies and murders. But in Aiken, the physical health of the city’s poorest residents has become a major concern for its police. Over the last five years, officers have worked with citizens to change old health care attitudes and, in the process, helped slash a once tragically high infant death rate in half.
“One of the primary standards a community can be evaluated on is its infant death rate,” Mayor Karen Papouchado says. “In 1989, Aiken County had the highest infant mortality rate in our nation. We were living with third world health standards for our children.”
The city asked for volunteers to undergo extensive training in health-related issues, including prenatal care. Six of the volunteers were public safety officers. After studying everything from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to nutrition, the officers began tactfully approaching pregnant women in project neighborhoods to find out about their levels of healthcare. If the expectant mothers were not getting the care they needed – and an estimated 40 percent were not – the officers gave them a medical ID badge that included their medical histories and directed them to free clinics in the area.
Officers also checked with clinic nurses to make sure the women were making their scheduled visits. After the births, the officers continued to visit the new mothers, providing them with child care information and free “sleep wedges” to help prevent SIDS. (Between 1991 and 1995, 19 of Aiken’s 22 cases of SIDS involved improper sleep environments.)
In the first 16 months of what the city calls its “Moms and Cops” program, officers referred 30 women to the health department, all of whom delivered healthy babies. There were no SIDS deaths in the targeted neighborhoods in 1995 or 1996.
Since then, the officers have expanded their roles from ensuring infant health care to providing medical care for entire families. “Our expansion into community clinics housed in police substations has for the first time provided accessible, basic health care to the poorest 10 percent of the city’s population,” Papouchado says. “The next step will be providing care for the next 10 percent