Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword: The Essential Role of Youth Development by Robert H. Bruininks
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Early Childhood Development and Human Capital
- PART I PRENATAL AND INFANT PROGRAMS
- 2 WIC Turns 35: Program Effectiveness and Future Directions
- 3 The Nurse-Family Partnership: From Trials to Practice
- 4 Carolina Abecedarian Project
- 5 Early Head Start Impacts at Age 3 and a Description of the Age 5 Follow-Up Study
- PART II PRESCHOOL EDUCATION
- PART III KINDERGARTEN AND EARLY SCHOOL-AGE SERVICES AND PRACTICES
- PART IV ECONOMIC SYNTHESES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD INVESTMENTS
- Appendix Question-and-Answer Sessions
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
3 - The Nurse-Family Partnership: From Trials to Practice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword: The Essential Role of Youth Development by Robert H. Bruininks
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Early Childhood Development and Human Capital
- PART I PRENATAL AND INFANT PROGRAMS
- 2 WIC Turns 35: Program Effectiveness and Future Directions
- 3 The Nurse-Family Partnership: From Trials to Practice
- 4 Carolina Abecedarian Project
- 5 Early Head Start Impacts at Age 3 and a Description of the Age 5 Follow-Up Study
- PART II PRESCHOOL EDUCATION
- PART III KINDERGARTEN AND EARLY SCHOOL-AGE SERVICES AND PRACTICES
- PART IV ECONOMIC SYNTHESES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD INVESTMENTS
- Appendix Question-and-Answer Sessions
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Many of the most intractable problems that young children and parents face in our society today are uniquely associated with adverse maternal health-related behaviors during pregnancy, dysfunctional infant caregiving, and stressful environmental conditions that interfere with parental and family functioning. These problems include infant mortality, preterm delivery, low birthweight, and neurodevelopmental impairments in young children resulting from poor conditions for pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, accidental childhood injuries, youth violence, closely spaced pregnancy, and thwarted economic self-sufficiency of parents. In a series of randomized trials conducted in (a) Elmira, New York, begun in 1977 in a semirural area with a primarily White sample; (b) Memphis, Tennessee, begun in 1987 with a primarily Black sample; and (c) Denver, Colorado, begun in 1994 with a sample that included a large portion of Hispanics, our team has been examining the impact of a program of prenatal and early childhood home visitation by nurses on improving parental behaviors and environmental conditions early in the life cycle in an effort to prevent these maternal and child health problems. These trials have enabled us to examine the extent to which the effects of the program are consistent across these different populations, settings, and time periods. The Denver trial was designed to determine the extent to which lay community health visitors might be able to produce the same beneficial effects as nurses when trained in the same program model.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of LifeA Human Capital Integration, pp. 49 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
- 15
- Cited by