A Methodological Approach for Evaluating the Enterprise Community Healthy Start Program in Rural Georgia: An Analysis Using Linked PRAMS, Birth Records and Program Data.

INTRODUCTION: Community Healthy Start program evaluations are often limited by a lack of robust data and rigorous study designs. This study describes an enhanced methodological approach using local program data linked with existing population-level datasets for external comparison to evaluate the Enterprise Community Healthy Start (ECHS) program in two rural Georgia counties and presents results from the evaluation. METHODS: ECHS program data were linked to birth records and the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) for 869 women who delivered a live birth in Burke and McDuffie counties from 2010 to 2011. Multivariate logistic regressions with and without propensity score methods modeled the association between ECHS participation and maternal health indicators and pregnancy outcomes. RESULTS: 107 ECHS participants and 726 non-participants responded to PRAMS and met eligibility criteria. Compared with non-participants, ECHS participants were younger, completed fewer years of education, and were more likely to be non-Hispanic Black, unmarried, insured with Medicaid, participating in WIC, and having an unintended pregnancy. Models with and without propensity score weighting derived similar results: there was a positive association between ECHS participation and receiving adequate or adequate plus prenatal care (p < 0.05); no statistically significant associations were observed between ECHS participation and any other health behaviors, health care access and utilization measures or pregnancy outcomes. DISCUSSION: Rigorous evaluation of a local Healthy Start program using linked PRAMS and birth records with a population-based external comparison group and propensity score methods is an enhanced and feasible approach that can be applied in other local and state jurisdictions.

Conditions and Dynamics That Impact Maternal Health Literacy among High Risk Prenatal-Interconceptional Women.

The purpose of the study was to describe conditions and dynamics in the lives of high-risk, low-income, Southern United States prenatal-interconceptional women (n = 37) in a home visiting program that promoted maternal health literacy progression. In the Life Course Health Development (LCHD) Model, conditions were risk and protective factors that impacted health. Dynamics drove the complex, epigenetic relationships between risk and protective factors. Maternal health literacy promotion helped participants address conditions and dynamics to create positive life changes. This research was a retrospective, mixed methods study of women's service records documenting care from prenatal admission to 24 months post-delivery. The Life Skills Progression Instrument (LSP) was scored to measure maternal health literacy progression. Ethnographic content analysis of visit notes triangulated with quantitative data enabled specificity of critical data elements. Subsequently, a complementary focus group was conducted with the Registered Nurse Case Managers (RNCM). Severe social conditions included devastating poverty, low educational achievement, transient housing, unstable relationships, incarceration, lack of continuous health insurance, and shortage of health care providers. Dynamics included severe psycho-social stressors, domestic violence, lack of employment, low income, low self-esteem and self-expectations, and social/family restraints upon women's intended positive changes. An important protective factor was the consistent, stable, evidence-informed relationship with the RNCM. Findings from the focus group discussion supported content analysis results.

Perinatal program evaluations: methods, impacts, and future goals.

The objective of this methodology note is to examine perinatal program evaluation methods as they relate to the life course health development model (LCHD) and risk reduction for poor birth outcomes. We searched PubMed, CDC, ERIC, and a list from the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) to identify sources. We included reports from theory, methodology, program reports, and instruments, as well as reviews of Healthy Start Programs and home visiting. Because our review focused upon evaluation methods we did not include reports that described the Healthy Start Program. The LCHD model demonstrates the non-linear relationships among epigenetic factors and environmental interactions, intentionality or worldview within a values framework, health practices, and observed outcomes in a lifelong developmental health trajectory. The maternal epigenetic and social environment during fetal development sets the stage for the infant's lifelong developmental arc. The LCHD model provides a framework to study challenging maternal child health problems. Research that tracks the long term maternal-infant health developmental trajectory is facilitated by multiple, linked public record systems. Two instruments, the life skills progression instrument and the prenatal risk overview are theoretically consistent with the LCHD and can be adapted for local or population-based use. A figure is included to demonstrate a method of reducing interaction among variables by sample definition. Both in-place local programs and tests of best practices in community-based research are needed to reduce unacceptably high infant mortality. Studies that follow published reporting standards strengthen evidence.

Maternal health literacy progression among rural perinatal women.

This research examined changes in maternal health literacy progression among 106 low income, high risk, rural perinatal African American and White women who received home visits by Registered Nurse Case Managers through the Enterprise Community Healthy Start Program. Maternal health literacy progression would enable women to better address intermediate factors in their lives that impacted birth outcomes, and ultimately infant mortality (Lu and Halfon in Mater Child Health J 7(1):13-30, 2003; Sharma et al. in J Natl Med Assoc 86(11):857-860, 1994). The Life Skills Progression Instrument (LSP) (Wollesen and Peifer, in Life skills progression. An outcome and intervention planning instrument for use with families at risk. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Baltimore, 2006) measured changes in behaviors that represented intermediate factors in birth outcomes. Maternal Health Care Literacy (LSP/M-HCL) was a woman's use of information, critical thinking and health care services; Maternal Self Care Literacy (LSP/M-SCL) was a woman's management of personal and child health at home (Smith and Moore in Health literacy and depression in the context of home visitation. Mater Child Health J, 2011). Adequacy was set at a score of (≥4). Among 106 women in the study initial scores were inadequate (<4) on LSP/M-HCL (83 %), and on LSP/M-SCL (30 %). Significant positive changes were noted in maternal health literacy progression from the initial prenatal assessment to the first (p < .01) postpartum assessment and to the final (p < .01) postpartum assessment using McNemar's test of gain scores. Numeric comparison of first and last gain scores indicated women's scores progressed (LSP/M-HCL; p < .0001) and (LSP/M-SCL; p < .0001). Elevated depression scores were most frequent among women with <4 LSP/M-HCL and/or <4 LSP/M-SCL. Visit notes indicated lack or loss of relationship with the father of the baby and intimate partner discord contributed to higher depression scores.