The role of race and ethnicity in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in four states: are there baseline disparities, and what do they mean for SCHIP?

Background: Elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in health has become a major national goal. The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has the potential to reduce disparities among the children who enroll if they exhibit the same disparities that have been documented in previous studies of low-income children. To determine the potential impact of SCHIP on racial and ethnic disparities, it is critical to assess baseline levels of health disparities among children enrolling in SCHIP.

After graduation, what? An analysis of the job placements of graduates of public health maternal and child health training programs. Project of the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health.

Objectives: In 1995, the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health (ATMCH) decided that information about the employment status of program graduates was essential to attempts to improve MCH curricula.

Method: ATMCH requested information from 13 MCH programs in schools of public health funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau and 12 provided information about their master's degree graduates in the 1990-1994 period, including the year of graduation, degree, Bureau traineeship support, position held, and employing agency.

Results: The total number of graduates was 742.

Medical, psychosocial, and behavioral risk factors do not explain the increased risk for low birth weight among black women.

Objective: Our purpose was to determine whether various demographic, behavioral, housing, psychosocial, or medical characteristics explain the difference in pregnancy outcome between black and white women.

Study Design: A sample of 1491 multiparous women with singleton pregnancies, 69% of whom were black and 31% of whom were white and who enrolled for care between Oct. 1, 1985, and March 30, 1988, participated in the study.

Collaborative needs assessment and systems development in Alabama: Process and products.

This article describes the implementation of a collaborative project and its results, involving a department of maternal and child health (DMCH) in a school of public health and a state department of public health. The state received a federal grant to enhance systems development for women and children. Adequate information regarding the existing system of health care was lacking.

Employment-related stress and preterm delivery: a contextual examination.

Studies of employment-related stress as a risk factor for preterm delivery suggest that contextual factors unrelated to occupation, as well as work-related characteristics, must be examined in assessing this relationship. In this study, the relationship of work and contextual characteristics--assessed at midpregnancy and including scores on an occupational fatigue index--to preterm delivery was examined among 943 black and 425 white low-income multiparous women who were at risk for a poor pregnancy outcome. At 24 to 26 weeks gestational age, a 77-item questionnaire was self-administered to obtain detailed information on sociodemographic and contextual characteristics, home physical activities, and occupational characteristics.

Agranulocytosis and chlorpromazine.

A case of death associated with chlorpromazine agranulocytosis and the pertinent literature is reviewed. The authors conclude that the condition is cumulative dose related. Elderly, sickly Caucasian females are the population at high risk.