Improving connections to early childhood systems of care via a universal home visiting program in Massachusetts.

Welcome Family is a universal, short-term nurse home visiting program designed to promote optimal maternal and infant physical and mental well-being and provide an entry point into the early childhood system of care to all families with newborns up to 8 weeks old living in defined communities in Massachusetts. The present study examines whether: 1) Welcome Family meets its goal of successfully connecting families to two early childhood programs-evidence-based home visiting (EBHV) and early intervention (EI)-relative to families with similar background experiences who do not participate in Welcome Family, and 2) whether these impacts are conditional on families' race and ethnicity and their primary language-two characteristics that are related to structural racism and health inequities. The study used coarsened exact matching (CEM) based on birth certificate data to match Welcome Family participants who enrolled during 2013-2017 to mothers and their infants living in the home visiting catchment areas who did not receive home visiting during the study period.

A Dietary Pattern With More Fruits and Vegetables in Children of Mothers Who Immigrated to the United States From Latin America Is Associated With Healthful Nutrient Intake and Weight Status.

Background: Children from families who immigrated to the United States may consume a lower-quality diet compared with their US-born peers. However, specific features of their dietary patterns, which could be a focus for improving diet quality, are not well-studied.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine dietary patterns that distinguish interpersonal variability in dietary intake and explore the association of dietary patterns with nutrient intake and weight status.

Timeliness of Early Identification and Referral of Infants with Social and Environmental Risks.

The Early Intervention Parenting Partnerships (EIPP) program is a home visiting program that provides home visits, group services, assessments and screenings, and referrals delivered by a multidisciplinary team to expectant parents and families with infants who experience socioeconomic barriers, emotional and behavioral health challenges, or other stressors. The present study examines whether EIPP successfully meets its aims of screening families for social and environmental factors that may increase the risk of children's developmental delays and connect them to the larger statewide early intervention (EI) system relative to families with similar background characteristics who do not receive EIPP. Coarsened exact matching was used to match EIPP participants who enrolled between 2013 and 2017 to a comparison group of families identified from birth certificates.

Maternal Engagement in a Home Visiting Program as a Function of Fathers' Formal and Informal Participation.

Home visiting programs support new and expecting parents by strengthening parenting practices, improving parental and child health and well-being, and preventing child maltreatment. Participant retention is often a challenge for home visitation, particularly for young families, potentially reducing program impact. Father engagement in services may be one avenue for supporting continued program take-up for young parents.

Effects of a Home Visiting Program on Parenting: Mediating Role of Intimate Partner Violence.

Young women aged 18 to 24 years are in the highest risk group for intimate partner violence (IPV), and adolescent mothers are at particularly high risk for IPV and for risky health behaviors. Exposure to IPV may contribute to parenting stress and risky behaviors, and may compromise parenting behavior and healthy child development. The present study examined whether program effects of a statewide home visiting program for adolescent parents on young mothers' parenting stress and risky behaviors measured 2 years post program enrollment were mediated by program effects on their exposure to IPV measured 1 year post enrollment.

Relationship types among adolescent parents participating in a home-visiting program: A latent-transition analysis.

Young parents (less than 25 years of age) have been shown to have especially low rates of father involvement and union stability. However, research has also shown that parenting experiences of young fathers may not be uniform. There is a need for more research that assesses both the multidimensionality of relationship typologies and their temporality.

Seven years later: effects of a neighborhood mobility program on poor Black and Latino adults' well-being.

This study explored program effects on adults' well-being seven years following the implementation of a court-ordered neighborhood mobility program. Low-income black and Latino adults residing in poor, segregated neighborhoods in Yonkers, New York were randomly selected to relocate to publicly funded townhouses in middle-class neighborhoods within the city. Adults who moved (n = 141) and demographically similar adults who were not selected to move (n = 106) were interviewed.

Does the neighborhood context alter the link between youth's after-school time activities and developmental outcomes? A multilevel analysis.

This article examines links between different measures of after-school time activity participation (5 specific activities and breadth) on youth's developmental outcomes (anxiety/depression, delinquency, and substance use) over 6 years and whether these links are moderated by neighborhood-level variables. The sample (N=1,315) of 9- and 12-year-old youth was drawn from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), a multilevel, longitudinal study of youth from 80 Chicago neighborhoods. Findings revealed that different types of activities and patterns of participation over time were associated with outcomes for youth and that, to some extent, these outcomes varied with neighborhood characteristics.

Neighborhood poverty and public policy: a 5-year follow-up of children's educational outcomes in the New York City moving to opportunity demonstration.

Data from the Moving to Opportunity Program, a randomized mobility experiment in which a subset of low-income minority families living in public housing in high-poverty neighborhoods were given vouchers to move to low-poverty neighborhoods, were used to evaluate 1 policy approach for improving children's educational outcomes. Four hundred twenty-five New York City children were seen 2 1/2 and 5 years following relocation (mean age=14.64 years, SD=3.

Short-term effects of moving from public housing in poor to middle-class neighborhoods on low-income, minority adults' outcomes.

This study reports results from a quasi-experimental residential mobility study in Yonkers, NY, in which low-income minority families residing in public and private housing in high-poverty neighborhoods were randomly assigned via lottery to relocate to publicly funded attached rowhouses in seven middle-class neighborhoods. One hundred seventy-three Black and Latino families who moved and 142 demographically similar families who remained in the original high-poverty neighborhoods were interviewed approximately 2 years after movers relocated; no baseline data were available. Multiple regression analyses controlling for individual- and family-level background characteristics revealed that adults who moved to low-poverty neighborhoods were less likely to be exposed to violence and disorder, experience health problems, abuse alcohol, receive cash assistance, and were more likely to report satisfaction with neighborhood resources, experience higher housing quality, and be employed, when compared with adults who remained in high-poverty neighborhoods.