Grantee: Family Connects
Study Type: RCT
Principal Investigator: W. Benjamin Goodman, Kenneth A. Dodge, & Yu Bai – Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University; Robert A. Murphy & Karen O’Donnell – Dule University School of Medicine
Project Description: This is a randomized controlled trial of Durham Connects (later renamed Family Connects), a universal home visitation program for families with a newborn child designed to improve children’s wellbeing through a series of nurse home visits, risk screenings, and referrals to community resources. The study randomly assigned all families who gave birth in Durham County, NC during a 14-month period in 2009-2010 to either receive Family Connects or to a control condition; a subset of 682 of these families were then randomly selected for longitudinal analyses. This five-year follow-up report describes findings on official child maltreatment investigations and emergency department utilization for the 531 families for whom data were available.
Key Findings: Negative binomial models indicated that families assigned to Family Connects had 39 percent fewer Child Protective Services investigations for suspected child maltreatment through five years of age (95 percent CI, −0.80 to 0.06; 90 percent CI, −0.73 to −0.01; control = 44 total investigations per 100 children and intervention = 27 total investigations per 100 children); intervention effects did not differ across subgroups. Families assigned to Family Connects also had 33 percent less total child emergency medical care use (95 percent CI, −0.59 to −0.14; 90 percent CI, −0.55 to −0.18; control = 338 visits and overnight hospital stays per 100 children and intervention = 227 visits and overnight hospital stays per 100 children). Positive effects held across birth risk, child health insurance, child sex, single-parent status, and racial/ethnic groups. Effects were larger for nonminority families compared with minority families.
Study Citation: Goodman, Benjamin W., Kenneth A. Dodge, Yu Bai, Robert A. Murphy, & Karen O’Donnell. Effect of a Universal Postpartum Nurse Home Visiting Program
on Child Maltreatment and Emergency Medical Care at 5 Years of Age: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open, 2021, vol. 4 (issue 7). doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.16024.
Full report here.
The Key Findings above were reproduced from the published report and do not necessarily reflect interpretation of Overdeck Family Foundation staff.
