About Violence Prevention During Pregnancy and Postpartum Initiative
Suicide and homicide are among the leading causes of death for pregnant and postpartum individuals, both nationwide and in Minnesota. These tragic losses can often be prevented with screenings, referrals, support, and proven strategies.
The Violence Prevention During Pregnancy and Postpartum Initiative focuses on three key goals:
- Enhancing tracking systems to monitor violent deaths during pregnancy and postpartum.
- Providing health care and community providers with evidence-based strategies to prevent violence and promote healthy relationships.
- Evaluating this initiative and creating a plan to sustain this work long-term.
This initiative is funded by the Office of Women’s Health.
Tracking pregnancy and postpartum violent deaths
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) studies multiple data sources to identify patterns and gaps in recognizing violent deaths during pregnancy and postpartum. This work helps us:
- Improve understanding of existing data.
- Recognize gaps in tracking violent deaths.
- Identify circumstances leading to these tragedies.
By sharing this data, we empower our partners to better support their communities.
Strategies to prevent violence
MDH supports health and non-traditional care providers to learn more about CUES (Confidential, Universal Education + Empowerment and Support), including how to effectively use a CUES approach in their practice. MDH’s role is to equip providers with information provide training to empower them to talk to patients about violence.
CUES: A Proven Approach
CUES (Confidential, Universal Education + Empowerment, and Support) is an evidence-based strategy used in care settings to address domestic and sexual violence. This strategy helps providers educate patients about healthy relationships, offer support, and connect them with resources—all without requiring disclosure of abuse. Using CUES improves health and safety outcomes by integrating trauma-informed care into routine health visits.
Learn more about CUES at Violence Prevention in Health Settings.
Our partners in preventing violence:
Together, we aim to:
- Expand the use of the CUES intervention (Confidential, Universal Education + Empowerment and Support)
- Identify and support individuals at risk of violent deaths
- Help health care providers address topics like mental health and intimate partner violence to prevent future tragedies
Evaluating and sustaining our efforts
The evaluation and sustainability work aims to track our progress in improving data systems and intervention efforts while develop plans to ensure this work can continue long-term.
Learn more
The Minnesota Department of Health is working to develop trainings on CUES and how to use this intervention in your own practice as well as providing resources for providers
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