Maternal and Child Health Library

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

December 22, 2006

1. NEW EDITION OF ASTHMA KNOWLEDGE PATH AVAILABLE

The new edition of Knowledge Path: Asthma in Children and Adolescents is an electronic guide to a selection of current, high-quality resources about asthma in children and adolescents; asthma management; and the impact of asthma on homes, schools, and communities. The knowledge path, produced by the MCH Library, presents general resources and information on special topics, including asthma information for families, asthma information in school, and asthma and environmental triggers. Tools for staying abreast of new developments in pediatric asthma research are also identified. The knowledge path is intended for use by health professionals, program administrators, policymakers, educators, community activists, and families who are interested in obtaining timely information on this topic. The knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_asthma.html.

MCH Library knowledge paths on other maternal and child health topics are available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/index.html. The MCH Library welcomes feedback on the usefulness and value of these knowledge paths. A feedback form is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/feedback.html.

• Global issues that apply to any measurement activity.
• The core set of evaluation measures used across all of the ABCD II states, focused on screening, referral, and follow-up.
• Additional evaluation methods used by one or more of the ABCD II states, focused on provider, office, and/or parent experiences; feedback from referral organizations; and measures anchored to whether parents of young children were screened for depression.
• Potential areas of leverage for state Medicaid agencies to implement the evaluation measures.

• The age of study participants averaged 25 years.
• Ninety-two percent of participants were born in Mexico and, on average, arrived in the United States at age 20.
• Forty-two percent of participants were overweight or obese before they became pregnant, and 36% had gained more than the recommended amount of weight during pregnancy.
• Twenty-seven percent of participants had abnormal glucose values of greater than 130mg/dL, and 6.8% had gestational diabetes mellitus.
• In the final multivariate model, significant independent predictors of birthweight were multiparity, body mass index, height, weight gain, and 1-hour glucose value after adjustment for gestational age.

• A total of 2,717 of 5,840 students (47%) in intervention schools received the vaccine after parental consent had been granted.
• The number of reported episodes of influenza-like illness during the predicted peak influenza week was significantly lower in intervention-school households than in control-school households.
• Compared with children in control-school households, children in intervention-school households had fewer visits to doctors or clinics for influenza-like illness, and adults in these households had a trend toward fewer such visits.
• Compared with control-school households, intervention-school households reported significantly lower absentee rates for influenza-like illness among students in elementary school and significantly fewer workdays missed by parents to care for their own, or someone else's, influenza-like illness.
• Both intervention and control schools had increased rates of overall absenteeism during the influenza outbreak. Within intervention schools, unvaccinated students had a significantly greater increase in absentee rates over baseline than did vaccinated students for the predicted peak week, the intense influenza outbreak period, and the influenza outbreak period.