Collaborative Studies in Child Health
Columbia University Children's Environmental Health Center
Columbia University Head-Start University Partnership
Community Influences in the Efficacy of Head Start: A Multi-level Approach
Head Start's Fifth National Research Conference
Mental Health in Head Start
NHSA Dialog; A Research-to-Practice Journal for the Early Intervention Field
Northern Manhattan Immunization Partnership
Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition
Parent Involvement in Head Start
Working through Education and Partnership against Asthma
Collaborative Studies in Child Health
Sally Findley
With funding from the New York State Department of Health (Bureau of Child Health Services), the Center has been conducting a series of studies exploring the ways that community organizations promote improved child health. Under the joint supervision of the Department of Health mentor and the Center faculty, students conduct studies, analyze and present the findings of this research. Studies conducted in the last three years have focused on the strategies used by community organizations to promote immunizations and, more generally, to conduct case management. Reports have been prepared highlighting the organizational structures and strategies associated with the more successful organizations. The research has documented the importance of face-to-face outreach, as well as the depth of community involvement needed for community outreach to succeed. In addition, we have joined larger collaborative studies of asthma using a school-based survey methodology developed as part of this project. These studies have documented the very high rates of asthma prevalence in East Harlem and the Hunts' Point neighborhood of the South Bronx. The collaboration is now developing a program for asthma education to be offered through child care centers.
|
|
Columbia University Children's Environmental Health Center
Virginia Rauh
This Center is undertaking a comprehensive community-base assessment of environmental risks to African-American and Latino children living in Harlem and Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan with the goal of reducing and ultimately preventing those risks. The research centers around the role of prenatal and postnatal exposures to airborne particulates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, environmental tobacco smoke and home allergens in increasing the risk of developmental impairment and/or asthma. A prospective cohort study of 400 mother-infant pairs is currently underway, using molecular biomarkers of exposure and susceptibility. Nutritional status during these developmental years will also be studied to determine how it affects susceptibility to these exposures in infants and children. A community intervention component will seek to reduce home exposures to environmental toxins and to improve nutritional status in this inner-city minority population
|
|
Columbia University Head-Start University Partnership
Virginia Rauh
This project was undertaken in collaboration with the Administration for Children,Youth and Families, Head Start Bureau, for the purpose of evaluating the influence of contextual factors on the educational outcomes of Head Start children residing in New York City. By using a multi-level modeling technique, the study assesses the impact of community socioeconomic conditions on the first and second grade math and reading scores of 5000 Head Start "graduates," while controlling for biomedical factors obtained from NYC birth certificates. The project demonstrates how collaborations of health, educational, and social service agencies can result in the linking of institutional data sets for the purpose of evaluating community-based interventions.
Community Influences in the Efficacy of Head Start: A Multi-level Approach
Virginia Rauh, Faith Lamb-Parker
This research project is a Columbia University/Head Start community partnership that has been retitled "Head Start Neighborhood Research Project" and involves a partnership with the largest Head Start grantee in New York City, the Administration for Children's Services. As an agency of the Human Resources Administration, it allocates funds to 77 Head Start programs in New York City. The research is funded by DHHS/Administration on Children, Youth and Families and is studying community influences on former Head Start children's success in primary school. Focus is on quality, and how Head Start's effectiveness is enhanced or compromised by strengths and disadvantages among biological and community conditions. This research combines sophisticated statistical techniques with an ecological view of child development.
|
|
Head Start's Fifth National Research Conference
Faith Lamb Parker
Head Start's Fifth National Research Conference, "Developmental and Contextual Transitions of Children and Families: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice" will take place on June 28-July 1, 2000 at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. The conference is sponsored by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, DHHS, in collaboration with Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, CPFH, and the Society for Research in Child Development. The Center administers this biannual conference to identify and disseminate new research on children and families, and translate research into practical applications for practitioners and policy makers. For more information about the conference, please visit our site at
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/hsrc/.
Mental Health in Head Start
Faith Lamb-Parker
This collaborative research project, initiated in 1999, focuses on the evaluation of a pilot mental health project introducing peer play group therapy in three Head Start sites in New York City. The Early Childhood Group Therapy intervention was originally developed and is to be implemented in Head Start by the Child Development Center of the Jewish Board of Family and Child Services in New York City. The research project involves a partnership between Columbia University, JBFCS, and the Administration for Children's Services/Head Start of New York City, which is providing the initial funding for the project.
NHSA Dialog; A Research-to-Practice Journal for the Early Intervention Field
Faith Lamb-Parker, Editor-in-Chief
The NHSA Dialog is the research journal of the National Head Start Association. Co-sponsored by the Research and Evaluation Division of the NHSA and the Center for Population and Family Health, the journal approaches issues from both research and practice perspectives. Its mission is to provide a forum for two-way communication between practitioners and researchers to ensure that research results are effectively translated for practice and policy. The focus of the journal is on research and practice concerning the well-being of low-income young children and their families. For more information about NHSA Dialog, please visit our site at
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/sph/popfam/NHSAdialog/.
Northern Manhattan Immunization Partnership
Sally Findley , in collaboration with the Department of Pediatrics
The Northern Manhattan Immunization Partnership is a five-year, CDC-funded demonstration project to develop and implement innovative strategies to improve the immunization coverage rate for children under 3 years of age in Northern Manhattan. This partnership grew out of the partnership developed in the Cross-Cultural Study to Promote Child Health (see above.). The partners include New York Presbyterian Hospital, Harlem Hospital, and St.Lukes/Roosevelt Hospital, along with their affiliated pediatric ambulatory care clinics. Immunization coverage is monitored with semi-annual audits, starting in 1997. The first audit showed that immunization coverage was only 47%, though it was as high as 80% at some sites. By examining the different patterns of care and immunization at each site, the partnership is promoting the spread of good ideas throughout the network. This research has identified the critical role played by continuity of care in promoting immunizations. Several baseline surveys have been conducted with parents in a wide variety of venues (emergency departments, WIC sites, community organization locations, community clinics) to identify barriers to immunization and regular primary care. Based on these surveys and the immunization audits, the partnership has begun expanding existing effective strategies and implementing several new strategies to promote earlier and consistent primary care utilization. In addition, the partnership works with several community organizations to develop and test outreach strategies among parents in Northern Manhattan. The results of these studies are being presented to network and community partners, as well as at national conferences.
| |
|
Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition
Sally Findley
The Northern Manhattan Start Right Coalition is a coalition of community organizations mobilized to improve child immunization rates in Upper Manhattan. The coalition has received a grant from the CDC as part of the REACH 2010 initiative to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities by the year 2010. The Start Right Coalition is one of only three groups nationwide who are focusing on the health priority area of child immunization.
In reaction to the relatively modest increases that have been obtained in the three years since the launch of the Northern Manhattan Immunization Partnership, the Coalition has doubled its efforts to reduce missed opportunities for immunizations and to promote effective immunization practices at member clinics. By identifying community partners to play key roles in organizing, planning, and carrying out project activities, the Coalition seeks to ensure that children most at risk for delayed immunizations receive on-time immunizations. Current partners include the Center for Population and Family Health of the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University, the Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative, the Northern Manhattan Immunization Partnership, and two of their partners, Alianza Dominicana and Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement. Additional partners are being sought among the members of the NMCVC and the Harlem and Washington Heights Child Vaccination Program Networks.
| |
|
Parent Involvement in Head Start
Faith Lamb Parker
The Parent Involvement Project originated in 1990 with funds from a federal agency, private foundations, and the National Council of Jewish Women Center for the Child. Now at Columbia, it represents a consortium between the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health and Yale University Head Start Research Center. Research focuses on the impact of parent involvement on the parents themselves and their families, particularly their Head Start child. Outcomes include: mothers' emotional well-being, the parent-child relationship, the home learning environment, school-readiness, early school adaptation and success, and satisfaction with the program. This is a longitudinal study that involves over 1000 Head Start mothers and children.
Working through Education and Partnership against Asthma
Sally Findley
Asthma rates in Northern Manhattan, particularly Central and East Harlem, are among the highest in the city. For both children and adults, hospitalizations for asthma are 2-3 times higher than the New York City average, and four to five times the national average. Funded by the Kellogg Foundation and the State Department of Health, "Working through Education and Partnership against Asthma" seeks to promote earlier identification of children at risk for asthma in Washington Heights and Harlem. Working with both Alianza Dominicana and Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, community organizations with long-standing ties to the Heilbrunn Center, the initiative has the following objectives:
- Educate family day care providers about asthma and its management
- Enable family day care providers to fulfill ACS requirements for certification to administer selected asthma medications to children under their care.
- Screen for asthma among families with children at family day care providers
- Provide referrals as needed for children who do not have a primary care provider.
- Offer a community-based, complementary parent education and support program to enhance the asthma education parents receive from their providers.
Held at the daycare center and administrative offices of the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI), the first phase of the initiative included an overview of the symptoms and physiological functions of asthma, the triggers that can cause asthma attacks, as well as the key medications and their roles in controlling asthma. Phase two of the initiative will work to educate the parents about asthma as well as provide a support group for parents of children with asthma. Both the education programs and the support groups will be offered free of charge at one of the participating community organizations for each neighborhood.