The Health and Development Foundation, formerly known as Healthy Russia, is a non-profit, non-governmental organization acting in the field of development and conducting programs aimed at public health improvement and behavior change. We have 10 years of experience in designing and implementing comprehensive educational and outreach programs to improve the health and healthy lifestyle skills of Russians, including programs targeting health care professionals.
We develop programs across a broad range of topics, including healthy lifestyles for youth, substance abuse and HIV prevention, HCP training, and reproductive, maternal and child health.
Follow us on Twitter @HealthDevtFound, @Text4babyRussia
What we do
Our main maternal and newborn health initiative is Text4baby Russia (SMS mame in Russian), an innovative service providing new and expectant mothers with topical, expert health information through free text messages to their mobile phones. This program is based on the successful U.S. program Text4baby, and was developed under the auspices of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission.
It was launched nationwide in Russia by the Health and Development Foundation in February 2012, and is now available free to women all over Russia.
Text4baby Russia is intended as a general health guideline and system of reminders that will encourage women to engage in healthy behaviors and visit their doctors in accordance with a generally accepted timeline. These reminders are also intended to jump-start conversations between mothers and doctors by notifying women of early warning signs of health problems or introducing new information.
Text messages are sent to subscribers (pregnant women and mothers with children up until their first birthday, and family members). Message topics include nutrition, safety, substance abuse, mental health, exercise, developmental milestones, breastfeeding and more. Subscribers receive personalized information, as messages are organizaed and sent in accordance with their children’s due date or birth date. Messages contain no advertisements, spam, or product promotions.
Our maternal and child health initiatives include work with MARPs, including a counseling and text message program for new mothers with either HIV, substance abuse, or commercial sex work in their medical history.
The Health and Development Foundation also works to ensure the reproductive and overall health of the next generation of parents through one of its youth programs, Everything That Concerns You, which aims to build healthy lifestyle skills among adolescents, including safe sexual practices and the avoidance of risky behavior.
