Individual and community predictors of maternal smoking in the city of Baltimore: what can be learned from a predominantly minority case controlled study?

This case control study of 1,000 birth certificates examined what individual and community factors predicted maternal smoking in Baltimore, Maryland. Conditional multinomial logistic regression results indicated women who were White were more likely to start smoking at a young age, but as they got older, they were less likely to smoke. Minority women were more likely to start smoking at a later age.

Facilitating visitation for infants with prenatal substance exposure.

Permanency planning for infants with prenatal substance exposure is challenging due to characteristics of the infants and the ongoing substance use or relapse of the parents. Visitation is a primary mechanism through which child welfare workers determine and support permanency planning. Productive use of visitation for permanency planning for infants with prenatal substance exposure is described, along with strategies for skillfully focusing visits on issues and needs relevant to this population.

The effect of a medicaid managed care program on patterns of psychiatric readmission among adolescents: evidence from Maryland.

This study evaluates the effect of Maryland's Medicaid managed care program on patterns of psychiatric readmission for adolescents. Rates and frequency of readmissions are compared before (FY 1997) and after (FY 1998) the implementation of Maryland's Medicaid managed care program. Medicaid claims files were reviewed for 881 adolescents consecutively admitted to three major Maryland psychiatric hospitals between July 1, 1996 and June 30, 1998.

Evaluation of a training program for foster parents of infants with prenatal substance effects.

The lack of prepared and available foster parents for children with prenatal substance effects is of increasing concern to the child welfare field. The research study reported here evaluated a multimodal inservice training program designed to enhance the competency of foster parents caring for infants with prenatal substance effects, and to promote an intent to foster such infants. Findings suggest that future foster parent training efforts in this area should focus on knowledge and skill attainment.