Maternal and Child Health Library

This and past issues of the MCH Alert are available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/alert/archives.html

November 13, 2009

1. ONLINE SNAPSHOTS PROVIDE ACCESS TO INFORMATION ABOUT STATE MCH PROGRAM ACTIVITIES

TVIS Snapshots present data on maternal and child health (MCH) from the 59 states and jurisdictions that receive Title V Block Grant funds. The snapshots, produced by the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), are based on data from 2010 applications submitted to the Title V Information System, which include data from states' FY 2008 annual reports and other sources. Each snapshot contains an overview describing the state's Title V program, the current year (2008) result and 5-year (2013) goal for the national MCH performance measures, and a list of MCHB-funded discretionary grants awarded to public and private organizations within the state (including links to project abstracts). The snapshots are available at https://perfdata.hrsa.gov/mchb/tvisreports/Snapshot/SnapShotMenu.aspx

• Little evidence exists to help differentiate key elements of a family history in the primary care setting.
• Persons more accurately report the absence of disease than the presence of disease in family members.
• Reported family histories are likely to vary from person to person and to be related to personal factors. Additional determinants of accuracy include the condition being reported and how closely related the information is to the person whose information is being provided. Finally, the context in which the family history is obtained may be important.
• The data are not sufficiently robust to conclude that a routine family history in primary care populations will lead to improved health outcomes.
• Individual characteristics that increase the likelihood that family history will be reported are being female, having health insurance, and having moderate to high socioeconomic status. For clinicians, residency training and length in practice were both associated with a greater likelihood of taking a family history.
• Research recommendations can be grouped as follows: (1) structure or characteristics of a family history; (2) process of acquiring a family history; and (3) outcomes of family history acquisition, interpretation, and application.

• Sugar-sweetened beverage consumption was not associated with weight gain.
• White milk consumption was inversely associated with weight gain.

• During the 18-month period, only four mothers (two in the counseling group and two controls) reported a continuous abstinence from smoking of longer than 6 months.
• Compared with controls, mothers in the counseling group had more 24-hour quits, more 7-day quits, and a higher mean rank on the outcome measure of longest quit duration.
• In the initial model with all independent variables, group assignment was the strongest predictor of longest quit attempt.
• In the final model, in which none of the demographic factors were retained, having made a quit attempt of at least 24-hour duration in the year prior to baseline was a significant predictor of longest quit attempt, with an odds ratio of 3.99 (i.e., mothers with a history of a 24-hour quit in the previous year were four times as likely to report longer quit durations as mothers without that history).
• Two variables were found to moderate the effects of counseling as demonstrated by their significant interactions with groups: (1) For mothers who at baseline reported that SHSe seriously harmed children, those in the counseling group were 6.50 times more likely than controls to report longer quits, and (2) for each point higher on the scale of permissiveness of their baseline home smoking rules, mothers in the counseling group were 2.33 times more likely to have longer quits, relative to controls.