Preventing Infant Mortality in Georgia February 2019 | Page 10

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Healthcare Georgia Foundation
Figure 6 demonstrates the percent of new prenatal clients who initiated breastfeeding. Of note, the Lowndes site began
monitoring this in 2014 as part of TCOY; thus, there is no baseline data for 2012. The other sites were monitoring this
indicator prior to the inception of TCOY but realized improvement from the baseline year through 2016, due to efforts to
enhance breastfeeding education in the prenatal period. The benchmark for initiation of breastfeeding among Georgia
women with live births per 2013 Georgia PRAMS shows variation by race/ethnicity: 77% for Hispanics, 75% for non-
Hispanic Whites, and 59% for non-Hispanic Blacks. By 2016, the program participants for each of the sites had achieved
or surpassed the race/ethnicity specific rates in the Georgia PRAMS data.
Figure 6. Percent of New Prenatal Clients Who Initiated Breastfeeding
OUTCOME EVALUATION
Findings from the outcome evaluation (Tables 1-3) indicate that grantees were successful in accessing and utilizing
objective data (SendSS for birth weight and gestational age; infant mortality reports for sleep-related infant deaths) to
monitor programmatic outcomes. Displayed in Tables 1-3 are tabulations of the race and county-specific rates of the
outcomes. The column second-from-right displays the change in percentage points (pp) of the outcome rates for the
2016 compared to the 2012 cohort years, while the right-most column provides the “difference-in-difference” when
comparing the change in percentage points (pp) for the rates of interest for program participants vs. the comparator
group. Of note, the county comparator is based on sharing the same race and county of residence as the program
participants. In most cases, the program participants are at greater risk for poor outcomes than the county comparator
due to their low-income status, for which they are targeted by the health department programs.
Across sites, the programs experienced similar changes in rates of preterm birth relative to their county comparator, as
summarized in Table 1.