The Illinois Center for Health Statistics (ICHS), Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), has submitted a grant application to CDC requesting funding and assistance to continue data collection through the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Management Monitoring System (PRAMS) Cooperative Agreement. The goal of the Illinois PRAMS Project is to help fulfill the IDPH mission to protect the health and wellness of the people of Illinois through prevention, health promotion, regulation, and the control of disease and injury. More specifically, the goal of the Illinois PRAMS Project is to collect high-quality data on maternal and early infancy behaviors and experiences and that the data collected meet the needs of IDPH and other state and private agencies. The data collected are used to assess maternal and child health (MCH) care needs, develop programs to improve MCH, and provide feedback on the effectiveness of these programs. PRAMS surveys are sent to a sample of Illinois women delivering live births and contain questions about maternal experiences and behaviors before and after childbirth and during the children's early infancy. New mothers are initially contacted by mail with all the materials needs to complete and return the surveys. Phone interviews are used to follow up with those mothers not responding by mail. The data collected are then weighted for sample size, non- response, and other factors to produce a data set that is represented of the target population of Illinois women giving birth in Illinois to live infants. PRAMS methods have been used in Illinois and other states for several years and have been shown to produce reliable information about the target population.
Data collected by the Illinois PRAMS Project are used by public health agencies to conduct maternal and child health (MCH) needs assessments that will be used to determine MCH priorities and allocate resources. Illinois PRAMS data are also used by state and private agencies to determine the effectiveness of Medicaid and other health insurance funding on maternal and child health. Data collected by Illinois PRAMS data are used to promote breastfeeding, broaden the understanding of postpartum depression, improve infant safety, and many other efforts to improve maternal and infant health.
