Ben Goodman
Publications [#220912] of Ben Goodman
Journal Articles
- Dodge, K.A., Goodman, W.B., Murphy, R.A., O’Donnell, K., Sato, J., & Guptill, S., Implementation and randomized controlled trial evaluation of universal postnatal nurse home visiting,
American Journal of Public Health
(2014),
pp. S136-S143
(last updated on 2015/01/06)Abstract:
Objective: Evaluate the hypotheses that a brief, universal, postnatal, nurse home-visiting intervention can be implemented with high penetration and fidelity and can prevent emergency health care services and promote positive parenting by age 6 months. Methods: All 4,777 resident births in Durham, NC, between July 1, 2009, and December 31, 2010, were randomly assigned, with even birth date families to intervention and odd birth date families to control. Durham Connects (DC) is a manualized 4-7 session program to assess family needs and connect parents with community resources to improve infant health and well-being. A representative subset of 549 families received blinded interviews for impact evaluation. Results: 80% of all families initiated participation; adherence to the protocol was 84%. Relative to controls (Mean=1.05), hospital records indicated that infants assigned to DC (Mean=0.43) had 59% fewer infant emergency medical care episodes (p<.0001). Relative to control mothers, DC mothers reported more community connections (p<.0001), more positive parenting behaviors (p<.01), participation in higher quality out-of-home child care (p<.001), and lower rates of anxiety (p<.05). Blinded observers reported better parenting (p<.09) and higher-quality home environment (p<.05) for DC than control families. Conclusions: A brief universal home-visiting program implemented with high penetration and fidelity can lower costly emergency medical care and improve family outcomes.