This proposal seeks support for post-third-grade assessment of 693 children and their families who were enrolled in a randomized trial of a program of prenatal and infancy home visitation by nurses that was epidemiologically and theoretically grounded. The sample enrolled was composed of low-income women who had no previous live births and who were largely African American (92%), unmarried (98%), and adolescent (67%) at the time of registration during pregnancy. In earlier phases of assessment, the program was found to improve the quality of care patients provided to their children, to reduce children's health-care encounters in which injuries were detected, to increase children's sequential processing skills as measured by the KABC, to reduce the number of dysregulated aggressive and violent themes expressed in their response to the MacArthur Story Stem Battery, and so to improve maternal life-course as reflected in fewer subsequent pregnancies, reduced use of welfare, and increases in the marriage and cohabitation with the biological father of the child. Many of the benefits in the area of parental care-giving and child functioning were concentrated in those children and their mothers who had few psychological resources (where psychological resources was defined as the absence of mental disorder symptoms, adequate intellectual functioning, and belief in their control over their life circumstances). The current proposal seeks support to determine whether the beneficial effects of the program on maternal, child, and family functioning extend through the early elementary school years, giving particular attention to maternal life-course and children's emerging antisocial behavior. Assessments of the children will be based on both mother and teacher reports. Teachers are independent, natural raters of the children's adaptation to an important social context. There are numerous reasons to expect that, from a developmental perspective, the effects of the program will increase as children experience the increased academic demands associated with entry into third grade. In addressing these questions, the current study will determine the extent to which this program of prenatal and infancy home visitation by nurses can produce enduring effects on maternal and child functioning (giving particular attention to the prevention of early-onset disruptive behavior disorders) in urban African Americans that are consistent with those achieved with whites in a central New York state county in a separate trial of this program conducted over the past 20 years.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH061428-02
Application #
6392767
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-RPHB-1 (01))
Program Officer
Lyon, Reid G
Project Start
2000-07-21
Project End
2003-04-30
Budget Start
2001-06-01
Budget End
2002-04-30
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2001
Total Cost
$643,034
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Rochester
Department
Type
Schools of Nursing
DUNS #
208469486
City
Rochester
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
14627
Kitzman, Harriet J; Olds, David L; Cole, Robert E et al. (2010) Enduring effects of prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses on children: follow-up of a randomized trial among children at age 12 years. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 164:412-8
Olds, David L; Kitzman, Harriet; Hanks, Carole et al. (2007) Effects of nurse home visiting on maternal and child functioning: age-9 follow-up of a randomized trial. Pediatrics 120:e832-45