Join MHLIC to explore innovations in maternal health. Each first and third Thursday of the month, beginning on July 1, 2021, we will host individuals/organizations who are thinking outside the box and shaking things up to improve the health of pregnant people and mothers across the nation. These Innovation Thursday events will last one hour from 1-2 pm ET and include presentations by guests followed by brief Q&A.

At the end of each webinar, viewers will be able to:

• Describe the maternal health issue addressed by the innovation
• Describe at least one feature that makes this particular approach innovative in the scope of maternal health

About the Guest Speaker, Anne Wanlund, Canopie

Anne is an experienced public and global health practitioner who has focused her career on maternal and child health. From 2015 – 2017, Anne led a team of over 100 staff across Rwanda during a period of programmatic and strategic change, introducing new programming focused on pregnancy to triple reach and boost impact. In 2018, she scaled an innovative social enterprise across Tanzania as Chief Operating Officer. Some of her accomplishments were increasing revenue by 4x, tripling the size of the team and geographic spread, and raising millions of dollars of grant funding. She also piloted new revenue-generating streams to increase the company’s gross profit margins, which has been key to its growth strategy.

At Canopie, Anne serves as CEO, and has been leading strategy, partnerships, business development, and operations.

Anne graduated with honors from the College of William and Mary and earned her Master’s degree from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she also served as a Teaching Fellow at Tufts and the Harvard School of Public Health and on multiple global health projects at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Canopie uses clinically validated techniques to prevent and alleviate symptoms of postpartum depression through a mobile app. We customize therapeutic audio-based programs using a HIPAA-compliant depression scale and survey about what the expecting or new mom is struggling with. We then offer tailored, light coaching in the form of written and video guidance over the course of 10 days. Our intervention was designed to be effective, accessible, and affordable in order to address the key treatment barriers that keep >50% of women from accessing care. We are rigorously testing our program, having just completed a randomized controlled trial with 100 perinatal women (59% low income, and international) and planning for our second.

For more information, email Allison George.