Service Coordination in Early Childhood Home Visiting: a Multiple-Case Study.

Early childhood home visiting is a preventive service delivery strategy that aims to promote child and parent health, positive parenting, child development and school readiness, and family economic self-sufficiency. To meet families' needs, programs provide a combination of direct services, and referrals and linkages to community-based services. Service coordination is therefore a critical component of home visiting's role within the early childhood system of care.

Referrals to Home Visiting: Current Practice and Unrealized Opportunities.

Introduction: Evidence supports ongoing investment in maternal and early childhood home visiting in the US. Yet, a small fraction of eligible families accesses these services, and little is known about how families are referred. This report describes priority populations for home visiting programs, the capacity of programs to enroll more families, common sources of referrals to home visiting, and sources from which programs want to receive more referrals.

Service Coordination to Address Maternal Mental Health, Partner Violence, and Substance Use: Findings from a National Survey of Home Visiting Programs.

Maternal risks such as poor mental health, partner violence, and substance misuse can undermine child health and development. Maternal and early childhood home visiting programs address these risks primarily through referral and coordination with community-based services, yet effects on these outcomes have been small. This study assessed the strengths of local home visiting sites' systems to support coordination of mental health, partner violence, and substance use services.

Strengthening the Evidence for Maternal and Child Health: Implementing the New Performance Measurement Framework for the Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant.

Purpose: The Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (HRSA MCHB) developed a three-tiered performance measure framework for the Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program (MCH Title V). The third tier, evidence-based/informed strategy measures (ESMs) are developed by states to address National Performance Measures (NPM) goals. To support states' efforts, MCHB funded the "Strengthen the Evidence for Maternal and Child Health" (STE) to: (1) define the concept of evidence for the field with an emphasis on strength; (2) identify available evidence for each NPM, (3) translate ESM research for use at the state level; and (4) provide technical assistance (TA) to states to facilitate implementation.

Warm Handoffs for Improving Client Receipt of Services: A Systematic Review.

Introduction: Warm handoffs intend to improve receipt of services by clients who receive referrals to services that are stigmatized or not easily accessible. Such strategies are characterized as the handoff or transfer of an individual between two service providers through a face-to-face, phone, or technology-assisted interaction. This approach may be useful for maternal and child health home visitors who provide direct services and facilitate connections to community resources for client families.

Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenditures Among United States Children: Parental Perceptions and Past-Year Expenditures, 2016 to 2017.

Objective: To examine the association between parental perceptions of out-of-pocket (OOP) health care costs for their child and the total amount of OOP health care expenditures for that child during the past year.

Methods: We used data from the 2016 and 2017 National Surveys of Children's Health, cross-sectional, parent-reported, and nationally representative surveys of noninstitutionalized US children, ages 0 to 17 years. We conducted bivariate analyses to assess characteristics associated with the amount of OOP expenditures and parental perceptions of these costs.

The Role of State Context in Promoting Service Coordination in Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs.

Context: The federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program provides funding to states to promote health and development of at-risk expectant families and families with young children. MIECHV programs are required to coordinate services within a larger system of care; yet, little is known about state-level factors that support coordination.

Objective: This study examined state-level supports and barriers for coordination of home visiting with other entities within the early childhood system of care.

Beliefs Regarding Development and Early Intervention Among Low-Income African American and Hispanic Mothers.

Objectives: Understand the role of health beliefs in shaping maternal decisions regarding help-seeking for children with developmental delay (DD) and explore differences between African American and Hispanic mothers.

Methods: Open-ended, semistructured interviews were conducted with African American and Hispanic mothers of children aged 0 to 36 months with DD. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by using inductive content analysis.

Feasibility of Implementing Group Well Baby/Well Woman Dyad Care at Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Objective: Group care has been shown to be effective for delivery of infant well child care. Centering Parenting (CP) is a model of group dyad care for mothers and infants. CP might improve quality and efficiency of preventive care, particularly for low-income families.

Annual Summary of Vital Statistics: 2013-2014.

The number of births in the United States increased by 1% between 2013 and 2014, to a total of 3 988 076. The general fertility rate rose 1% to 62.9 births per 1000 women.

Newborn Screening Programs and Sickle Cell Disease: A Public Health Services and Systems Approach.

Introduction: Despite universal newborn screening (NBS), children in the U.S. continue to experience morbidity and mortality from sickle cell disease and related causes.

Home Visiting: A Service Strategy to Reduce Poverty and Mitigate Its Consequences.

Home visiting programs are increasingly recognized as an important part of the early childhood system of care in the United States. The objectives of this report are to review the rationale for home visiting; characterize the Federal Home Visiting Program; highlight the evidence of home visiting effectiveness, particularly for low income families; identify opportunities to promote coordination between medical homes and home visiting programs; and explain the critical role of research, evaluation, and quality improvement to strengthen home visiting effectiveness. Home visiting programs offer voluntary home-based services and other supports to meet the needs of vulnerable pregnant women and young families.

Changes in Children's Oral Health Status and Receipt of Preventive Dental Visits, United States, 2003-2011/2012.

Introduction: Oral health represents the largest unmet health care need for children, and geographic variations in children's receipt of oral health services have been noted. However, children's oral health outcomes have not been systematically evaluated over time and across states. This study examined changes in parent-reported children's oral health status and receipt of preventive dental visits in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Maternal distress and child neuroendocrine and immune regulation.

Rationale: Neuroendocrine-immune regulation is essential for maintaining health. Early-life adversity may cause dysregulation in the neuroendocrine-immune network through repeated activation of the stress response, thereby increasing disease risk.

Objective: This paper examined the extent to which maternal psychological well-being moderates neuroendocrine-immune relations in children.

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Attained Size Among Children in the First 2 Years of Life.

Objective: To evaluate the relation of maternal depressive symptoms with attained size and whether it is stronger for young children in low-income families.

Methods: Secondary analysis was performed of longitudinal data from enrollment and parents surveys from the Healthy Steps for Young Children National Evaluation among 4745 children who made at least one visit to a Healthy Steps site. Length and weight data from medical records were converted to z scores and percentiles for length for age and weight for length at 6, 12, and 24 months using 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention growth standards.

Postpartum weight retention risk factors and relationship to obesity at 1 year.

Objective: To explore risk factors for postpartum weight retention at 1 year after delivery in predominantly low-income women.

Methods: Data were collected from 774 women with complete height and weight information from participants in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Community Child Health Network, a national five-site, prospective cohort study. Participants were enrolled primarily in the hospitals immediately after delivery.

Community socioeconomic disadvantage and the survival of infants with congenital heart defects.

Objectives: We examined the association between survival of infants with severe congenital heart defects (CHDs) and community-level indicators of socioeconomic status.

Methods: We identified infants born to residents of Arizona, New Jersey, New York, and Texas between 1999 and 2007 with selected CHDs from 4 population-based, statewide birth defect surveillance programs. We linked data to the 2000 US Census to obtain 11 census tract-level socioeconomic indicators.

Early maternal depressive symptoms and child growth trajectories: a longitudinal analysis of a nationally representative US birth cohort.

Background: Maternal depressive symptoms are negatively associated with early child growth in developing countries; however, few studies have examined this relation in developed countries or used a longitudinal design with data past the second year of the child's life. We investigated if and when early maternal depressive symptoms affect average growth in young children up to age 6 in a nationally representative sample of US children.

Methods: Using data from 6,550 singleton births from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), we fit growth trajectory models with random effects to examine the relation between maternal depressive symptoms at 9 months based on the twelve-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and child height and body mass index (BMI) to age 6 years.

Role of health insurance on the survival of infants with congenital heart defects.

Objectives: We examined the association between health insurance and survival of infants with congenital heart defects (CHDs), and whether medical insurance type contributed to racial/ethnic disparities in survival.

Methods: We conducted a population-based, retrospective study on a cohort of Florida resident infants born with CHDs between 1998 and 2007. We estimated neonatal, post-neonatal, and infant survival probabilities and adjusted hazard ratios (AHRs) for individual characteristics.

Five-year follow-up of Community Pediatrics Training Initiative.

Objective: To compare community involvement of pediatricians exposed to enhanced residency training as part of the Dyson Community Pediatrics Training Initiative (CPTI) with involvement reported by a national sample of pediatricians.

Methods: A cross-sectional analyses compared 2008-2010 mailed surveys of CPTI graduates 5 years after residency graduation with comparably aged respondents in a 2010 mailed national American Academy of Pediatrics survey of US pediatricians (CPTI: n = 234, response = 56.0%; national sample: n = 243; response = 59.

Residency exposures and anticipated future involvement in community settings.

Objective: To assess how exposures to community activities in residency impact anticipated future involvement in community child health settings.

Methods: Prospective cohort study of pediatric residents from 10 programs (12 sites) who completed training between 2003 and 2009. Residents reported annual participation for ≥ 8 days in each of 7 community activities (eg, community settings, child health advocacy) in the prior year.