The Effect of Exposure to Reach Out and Read on Shared Reading Behaviors.

BACKGROUND: Caregiver-child shared reading improves literacy skills, school readiness, familial relationships, and social-emotional development. This multiyear study seeks to evaluate the effect of exposure to Reach Out and Read (ROR) on caregiver reading frequency and behaviors. METHODS: Caregivers of children 6 months to 5 years in 427 primary care clinics in North and South Carolina were asked to complete the Reach Out and Read Parent Feedback Survey. Caregivers not previously exposed to ROR were categorized as "new," and those who had previously been exposed to ROR as "returning" to compare reading behaviors between groups. RESULTS: From 2014 to 2019, caregivers completed 100,656 surveys. Returning caregivers were more likely to report reading or looking at books every day (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.27; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.22-1.33). Returning caregivers were more likely to perform behaviors like letting the child turn pages (AOR = 1.71; 95% CI, 1.62-1.79), making up stories about the pictures (AOR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.39-1.53), asking what is happening in the pictures (AOR = 1.39; 95% CI, 1.32-1.47), helping identify things in the pictures (AOR = 1.57; 95% CI, 1.50-1.65), reading to the child 30 minutes every day (AOR = 1.39; 95% CI, 1.33-1.46), and taking the child to the library (AOR = 1.26; 95% CI, 1.20-1.34). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows a significant association between caregivers' exposure to ROR, high-frequency reading, and positive reading behaviors, and is consistent for all 6 years studied.retain-->.

Health Care Use Among Latinx Children After 2017 Executive Actions on Immigration.

BACKGROUND: US immigration policy changes may affect health care use among Latinx children. We hypothesized that January 2017 restrictive immigration executive actions would lead to decreased health care use among Latinx children. METHODS: We used controlled interrupted time series to estimate the effect of executive actions on outpatient cancellation or no-show rates from October 2016 to March 2017 ("immigration action period") among Latinx children in 4 health care systems in North Carolina. We included control groups of (1) non-Latinx children and (2) Latinx children from the same period in the previous year ("control period") to account for natural trends such as seasonality. RESULTS: In the immigration action period, 114 627 children contributed 314 092 appointments. In the control period, 107 657 children contributed 295 993 appointments. Relative to the control period, there was an immediate 5.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.40%-10.9%) decrease in cancellation rates among all Latinx children, but no sustained change in trend of cancellations and no change in no-show rates after executive immigration actions. Among uninsured Latinx children, there was an immediate 12.7% (95% CI: 2.3%-23.1%) decrease in cancellations; however, cancellations then increased by 2.4% (95% CI: 0.89%-3.9%) per week after immigration actions, an absolute increase of 15.5 cancellations per 100 appointments made. CONCLUSIONS: There was a sustained increase in cancellations among uninsured Latinx children after immigration actions, suggesting decreased health care use among uninsured Latinx children. Continued monitoring of effects of immigration policy on child health is needed, along with measures to ensure that all children receive necessary health care.

Randomized controlled trial evaluating a collaborative model of care for transitioning children with medical complexity from hospital to home healthcare: Study protocol.

This article describes the study protocol for an evaluation of an innovative model of care that supports home health nurses (HHN) who serve children with medical complexity (CMC). CMC constitute a small proportion of children, but have very high need for health services, are hospitalized frequently, and account for significant proportion of pediatric healthcare expenditures. High-quality home health nursing services are important for CMC, but models of care of home healthcare, after discharge of CMC from the hospital, have not been tested. Our project aims are to develop, implement, and test a model of care, called ICollab, to improve home healthcare delivery for CMC. The ICollab model consists of collaboration between HHN, primary-care physicians and clinicians of the complex care program of a tertiary-care children's hospital in the care of CMC. In this randomized clinical trial, we will recruit 110 CMC discharged home on home health nursing services. The intervention group (n = 55) will receive the ICollab intervention for 6 months post-discharge from the hospital, in addition to usual care. Children in the control group (n = 55) will receive only usual care. Outcome measures will include healthcare utilization metrics (hospitalization rates, emergency room visit rates, and days to readmission), caregiver burden and caregiver satisfaction with home healthcare, HHN retention, and HHN collaboration with other healthcare providers. We hypothesize that ICollab will reduce healthcare utilization and caregiver burden, and improve caregiver satisfaction with home healthcare, increase HHN retention, and increase HHN collaboration with other healthcare providers. Results of this study have the potential to provide a critically needed evidence-base for interventions to improve the quality of healthcare delivery for CMC. This study is registered on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03978468) and is ongoing.

Improving Compliance Rates with Health Assessment and Vaccine Documentation to Decrease School Absences: A Community Collaborative.

Students entering North Carolina public schools must have documentation of a health assessment and immunizations by the 30th day of class, or they are excluded from attending school until they submit documentation. A community collaborative was essential in decreasing the number of students excluded from school for noncompliant documentation in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County school district.