One night a month, MoThou Do takes her place in a chair near the counter of a West Modesto video store just a touch bigger than a walk-in closet.

The store specializes in Asian videos, and as customers come in Do corners them. She asks questions. Very personal questions.

Speaking Cambodian, she asks women when they had their last Pap smear and if they had a mammogram. She asks men if they have wives or girlfriends who may be pregnant and need to see a doctor.

Do is a community health worker for Stanislaus County's Health Services Agency, part of a team of educators and nurses that reaches out to women and families. They hang out in businesses, set up shop at swap meets and knock on doors in neighborhoods.

Their goal: To help people get health care and health insurance.

"They're hardly ever in the office," said Lydia Carroll, a public health nurse who coordinates the program. "If it means going somewhere during a weekend or during the evening, they will do it."

The program, called Perinatal Outreach and Education, started in the early 1990s after officials became alarmed at the number of tiny babies born in Stanislaus County. Babies with low birth weights, likely to have health problems, are often born to women who have little or no medical care during pregnancy.

At first, public health nurses taught classes to parents-to-be. Then, program organizers brought in community health workers to seek out people who might not be aware of services such as county clinics and low-cost health insurance.

Carroll, the program coordinator, consults with the county's epidemiologist to determine which areas are home to families whose children were born with low birth weights.

The program's six community health workers -- all bilingual -- use maps to determine where they're needed. They color in areas they've visited so they can see where they need to spread their message.

On a recent afternoon, community health workers knocked on doors near Crows Landing Road in Modesto, speaking to residents and handing out brochures in English and Spanish.

Alex Bejarano and his wife, Claudia, were happy to see community health worker Maria Nakahara. She gave the couple an application for Medi-Cal and encouraged them to apply for another type of health insurance to cover their three children.

"It helped a lot," Bejarano said. "I know they need health insurance."

With a budget of $42,000 a year, the program includes two public health nurses who teach classes on parenting and fetal development. Community health workers also teach classes on several topics, including breast feeding.

Their success is difficult to gauge. It's not easy to track how many pregnant women saw doctors after visits from community health workers.

But nearly 83 percent of women in Stanislaus County received prenatal care during their first trimester last year, compared to about 73 percent 11 years ago, according to the county's Community Health Report. The number of low birth-weight babies also decreased.

"I think we make a difference," said Do, the worker who approaches people in the video store. "I think we know the community."

Reprinted by permission of Modesto Bee.