Introduction: Perinatal depression (PND) has remained a prevalent disorder that affects women worldwide, while disproportionately affecting African American (AA) women due to racial disparities. This project’s purpose was to educate healthcare providers on the importance of screening AA women at the initial prenatal visit, to include cultural competency on this population of women in order to improve attitudes and acceptability of perinatal depression screening, and to determine rationale for continued post-partum screening only. Methods: Providers were surveyed with the 9-question PND Attitudes and Screening Acceptability Questionnaire (PASAQ). Following the survey, participants viewed an educational presentation via PowerPoint that included cultural competency and the importance of initiating the screening tool at the initial prenatal visit. Providers then collected and recorded data daily for 4 weeks on an Excel spreadsheet in several categories including patient demographics and depression screening practices. Healthcare providers completed the PASAQ again after the 4 weeks of data collection. Results: The findings indicated that by educating providers, there was a greater level of understanding of how perinatal depression affects AA women. Pre-intervention, 50% of participants reported screening patients for depression at the first prenatal visit. Postintervention,100% of participants reported screening patients for depression at the first prenatal visit. Although not statistically significant (p=0.276), these findings were clinically significant. Discussion: Providing cultural education before screening is helpful to clinicians to improve attitudes and acceptability of perinatal depression screening in African American women of low socioeconomic status. Initiating screening tools at the initial prenatal visit drastically reduces the time for women to receive treatment for PND and improves outcomes for maternal, fetal, and infant patients