PRAMS (Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System) is a population-based risk factor surveillance system designed to identify and monitor behaviors and experiences of women before, during, and after pregnancy. In April of 2006, the Wyoming Department of Health was awarded a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish PRAMS in Wyoming. Sub-populations of interest for Wyoming PRAMS include mothers of low birth weight infants and minority women, as these groups have been oversampled to obtain adequate representation for analysis, as well as women on Medicaid and women enrolled in the Women, Infants, and Children's (WIC) program during pregnancy. In April 2011, Wyoming PRAMS plans to begin oversampling American Indian (AI) births, a key Wyoming population, to enable PRAMS to better capture and represent the behaviors and experience before during and after pregnancy. PRAMS data is collected by surveying a monthly sample of approximately 140 Wyoming women who had a live birth in the past two to six months. Wyoming PRAMS uses a combination of two data collection approaches: statewide mailings of the surveys and telephone follow-up with women who do not return the survey by mail. The written questionnaires and telephone interviews can both be completed in Spanish when necessary. Influenza surveillance questions were added in December 2009. PRAMS provides statewide data on maternal and child health (MCH) priorities to improve health behaviors and birth outcomes. PRAMS data will also allow the identification of emerging maternal and infant health behaviors and experiences that occur during the postpartum period, data not captured by vital records. The major areas of analyses for Wyoming PRAMS from 2011 to 2015 include nutrition in women of reproductive age, including folic acid use and weight gain during pregnancy;smoking during pregnancy;teen birth;breastfeeding initiation and duration;unintentional injury among children and adolescents including child safety seat utilization, safe sleep, and home safety;and sexual and dating violence. Marketing materials have been developed to advertise the PRAMS survey and increase response rates. Wyoming PRAMS will work closely with the Rocky Mountain Tribal Epidemiology Center in Billings, Montana as well public health staff from the Wind River Indian Reservation to increase AI response rates. Wyoming PRAMS will focus on data dissemination heavily in the next few years. A PRAMS data report will be created annually and will include a section highlighting the MCH priorities. In addition, PRAMS fact sheets will be created for specific MCH priority issues and updated annually. All fact sheets, reports, press releases, and slide show presentations will be posted to the Wyoming PRAMS website.
Wyoming PRAMS provides statewide data on maternal and child health (MCH) priorities in order to improve health behaviors and birth outcomes. PRAMS data will also allow the identification of emerging maternal and infant health behaviors and experiences that occur during the postpartum period. MCH programs can use PRAMS data to target and evaluate programs to enhance the health of women and children in Wyoming.
