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NEW RESEARCH
VALIDATES
POSITIVE IMPACT ON CHILD HEALTH
In January, the peer-reviewed Maternal and Child Health Journal published two eagerly anticipated and important studies on Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) that showed significant results on reduction in preterm births and improvement of child health outcomes. These studies provide contemporary research on the current U.S. replication of NFP, outside of the original randomized, controlled trials.
“These studies build on the previous findings observed in the original randomized, controlled trials and show significant benefits for Nurse-Family Partnership children in being more likely to have been born full-term, breastfed and up-to-date on immunizations,” said Bill Thorland, PhD, Director of Evaluation and Research at NFP and lead author of the study.
“These measured outcomes confirm Nurse-Family Partnership is supporting moms to have healthier babies and these studies will be invaluable to policymakers to bring Nurse-Family Partnership to more families,” said Roxane White, president and CEO of NFP.
SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION ON PRETERM BIRTHS
The study, “Status of Birth Outcomes in Clients of the Nurse-Family Partnership," showed that NFP had a significant reduction on preterm births. This marks a new significant finding of a reduction on all preterm births when measured on almost 30,000 families who were enrolled in NFP. This study complements the 2015 meta-analysis study conducted by Dr. Ted Miller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation which also showed a broader impact on preterm births, as compared to the original randomized trials which only showed such impact in one of the studies and only when evaluating women who had smoked during pregnancy.
HIGHER BREASTFEEDING AND IMMUNIZATION RATES
Another study, "Status of Breastfeeding and Child Immunization Outcomes in Clients of the Nurse–Family Partnership," showed that NFP moms were significantly more likely to have ever breastfed and to have continued to breastfeed their babies at
6-months old. In addition, NFP children were significantly more likely to be up-to-date on immunizations at 6 months, 18 months and 24 months of age.
The birth outcomes studies were completed by Bill Thorland and Dustin Currie, a former NFP research analyst, and in addition to these two lead authors the child health study also was completed by Emily Wiegand, Joe Walsh and Nick Mader of the University of Chicago.
Photo by Lydia Thompson/Urban Institute.