1. Brief Highlights Need to Increase Young Adults' Fertility-Awareness Knowledge
What Young Adults Know -- and Don't Know -- About Women's Fertility Patterns: Implications for Reducing Unintended Pregnancies describes the current state of fertility-awareness knowledge among young adults in the United States. The brief, published by Child Trends, draws on data from the National Survey of Reproductive and Contraceptive Knowledge to describe the level of "fertility awareness knowledge" -- defined as being able to identify the point during a woman's menstrual cycle at which she is able to become pregnant -- among a sample of unmarried adults ages 18-29. The authors examine differences in fertility-awareness knowledge by gender, race and ethnicity, education, age, receipt of sex education or sexual health care, sexual experience, pregnancy or childbearing status, and use of various contraceptive methods. They highlight several patterns, which may help target future interventions to ensure that young adults have accurate information about sexual and reproductive health. The brief is available at http://www.childtrends.org/Files/Child_Trends-2012_09_21_RB_FertilityPatterns.pdf
2. Resource Center Releases Guide on Child Passenger Safety
Child Passenger Safety Resource Guide 2012 is designed to help maternal and child health and injury-prevention professionals in state and territorial health departments address the issue of child passenger safety. The guide was produced by the Children's Safety Network, a resource center supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Contents include data, research articles, updates on policy legislation, evidence-based prevention strategies, tools for program planning, and a list of national organizations that address child passenger safety. The guide is available online.
3. Fact Sheet Explores Relationships and Living Arrangements Among Adolescents Following Birth
Why It Matters: Teen Childbearing, Single Parenthood, and Father Involvement looks at childbearing among adolescents, their relationship status and living arrangements when their child was born, and how their relationship status and living arrangements vary in the years following their child's birth. The fact sheet, published by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, presents data on adolescent birth rates by marital status (overall and non-marital) for the period 1991-2010 and describes the relationship status (married, cohabiting, single) and living arrangements (without partner or relatives, with partner, with relatives and partner, with relatives) of adolescent mothers having a birth in the past year (2008-2010). Tables show how relationship status and living arrangements vary by race and ethnicity. The fact sheet also provides data on the living arrangements of former adolescent mothers (at age 25) by race and ethnicity and the frequency of visits from nonresident fathers with children born to an adolescent mother. The authors conclude with a discussion of adolescent mothers' relationship status and living arrangements in the years following their child's birth. Topics include relationship quality and non-resident father involvement and financial support. The fact sheet is available at http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/why-it-matters/pdf/Childbearing-SingleParenthood-FatherInvolvement.pdf
4. Monograph Explores New Dental Office Practice Paradigm
The October 2012 issue of Dental Clinics of North America focuses on primary health care in the dental office. Topics include monitoring chronic disease and controlling risk factors; screening for undiagnosed and undertreated hypertension; providing instruction and intervention on tobacco cessation; detecting skin cancer and benign skin lesions; educating clients, including providing nutrition and physical activity recommendations, to help them adopt healthier lifestyles; identifying infectious diseases; identifying, assessing, and managing clients who present with or are at risk for developing diabetes; raising awareness of overweight status and obesity risk behaviors in children; identifying risk for osteoporosis; and screening and monitoring for systemic disease risk. The issue is available at http://dental.theclinics.com/issues?issue_key=S0011-8532(11)X0008-3
5. Article Evaluates a Parent-Led Developmental Disabilities Curriculum for Residents
"Pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents found their experiences interacting with families of CSHCN [children with special health care needs] through the Project DOCC [Delivery of Chronic Care] program to be . . ."Very Good’’ to ‘‘Excellent’’ across all areas assessed," write the authors of an article published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal online on September 18, 2012. Provision of care in the family-centered environment has been shown to have positive health outcomes for families of CSHCN. Despite the desire of parents of CSHCN to have close relationships with physicians, however, parent surveys suggest that primary care physicians underestimate parental needs for information about their child with special health care needs. Recognizing the need to educate physicians about CSHCN and their families, a group of parents independently developed Project DOCC in 1994 to help physicians learn what families experience at home and outside hospitals and clinics. In 2002, Project DOCC was integrated into the pediatric and medicine/pediatric residency programs at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Boling Center for Developmental Disabilities. The study described in this article was conducted to evaluate the level of satisfaction and sense of relevance pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents reported after interacting with families of CSHCN during a parent interview and a visit to the families’ homes.
Participants were all pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents who took part in Project DOCC during their 1-month mandatory rotation in developmental disabilities from academic years 2002 through 2009. In addition to being surveyed, residents were asked to provide written qualitative comments about their experiences to enhance the quantitative measures of satisfaction and relevance of the curriculum.
The authors found that
The authors conclude that "similar parent-led experiences can enhance training programs where physicians will be interacting and treating families with CSHCN. Such experiences could potentially be extrapolated to other training programs where clinicians are training to work with people with chronic disabilities or chronic illnesses and their family members."
Kube DA, Bishop EA, Roth JM, et al. 2012. Evaluation of a parent led curriculum in developmental disabilities for pediatric and medicine/pediatric residents. Maternal and Child Health Journal [published online on September 18, 2012]. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10995-012-1133-5
Readers: More information is available from the following MCH Library resource:
- Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs: Knowledge Path at
http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_CSHCN.html
6. Study Characterizes Parenting Aggravation in Immigrant Families
"Our study demonstrates the difficult parenting experience in immigrant households, and the need for outreach efforts . . . that will help improve the parenting experience of immigrant households," write the authors of an article published in the American Journal of Public Health online on September 20, 2012. Parenting aggravation is a measurement of stress experienced by parents associated with caring for children. High parenting aggravation has previously been associated with maternal and paternal depression, autism, learning disabilities, child obesity, maternal chronic illness, paternal alcoholism, single parenthood, family transitions, and black race. The study described in the article used data from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health to determine the prevalence of parenting aggravation in different immigrant family types and racial and ethnic groups in the United States.
The four immigrant family types were as follows: foreign-born child, U.S.-born child with one foreign-born parent, U.S.-born child with two foreign-born parents, and U.S.-born child and U.S.-born parents (comparison group). Race and ethnicity included non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, multiracial, and non-Hispanic other. The study used U.S.-born non-Hispanic white as the comparison group. Parenting aggravation was measured by the Aggravation in Parenting Scale. The initial analysis tested for sociodemographic and parenting aggravation differences across different immigrant family types. The final analysis examined the joint effects of immigrant family type and race and ethnicity on parenting-aggravation outcomes, adjusting for children's age, gender, health status, federal poverty level, "children with special health care needs" status, family structure, and total number of children in the household.
The authors found that
"In our study, the compound variable of race [and] ethnicity and immigrant family type enabled us to identify essential high-risk groups in the [U.S.] population," state the authors. They suggest that "culturally and linguistically competent interventions can thus be developed to address each unique immigrant group at the national and local level."
Yu SM, Singh GK. 2012. High parenting aggravation among US immigrant families. American Journal of Public Health [published online on September 20, 2012]. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/ 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300698
Readers: More information is available from the following MCH Library resource:
- Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health: Knowledge Path at
http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_race.html
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