DP21-001 Indiana Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System

The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) program in Indiana will continue to greatly aid our goal to reduce infant morbidity and mortality and to promote maternal health by influencing maternal and child health programs, policies and maternal behaviors during pregnancy and early infancy. In order to achieve this aim, Indiana needs statistically representative, high quality data to monitor risk factors for maternal and infant health that PRAMS offers. The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) will continue to utilize these data to inform public health programs and policies and health care system changes. The use of PRAMS data will help Indiana continue to track pregnancy outcomes to tailor programming and follow-up in an effort to prevent preterm births and reduce infant mortality. We have been able to determine whether target groups are receiving services, and better understand the barriers to services for certain target groups by analyzing our first year of data. By being able to assess changes in service use over time we will be able to more quickly assess whether programs and policies in effect are working and/or require modification. PRAMS data provide insight into maternal behaviors so that programs can be tweaked to reflect the most current knowledge regarding the health and intentions of mothers and infants in Indiana. The proposed activities in this application consist of conduct of all interviews for the PRAMS data collection cycle on a monthly basis via mailed Indiana PRAMS questionnaires with follow-up telephone call attempts for non-respondents when necessary. The Indiana PRAMS program will continue to be housed in the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Division at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH). In-house PRAMS staffing will consist of the MCH Epidemiology Director who will also serve as the PI (10%) and the PRAMS Project Coordinator/Epidemiologist (100%). ISDH/MCH has selected a contract entity, Kent State University Survey Research Lab (KSU) through a bid process in order to assist with data collection. KSU houses a Data Manager who contributes at least 60% of their time to PRAMS. All staff work together to establish a stable program in order to meet all of the goals and objects set forth by the CDC. The MCH Division collaborates with the Vital Records Division at ISDH to ensure data are readily available for sampling through the ISDH/MCH Integrated System. This system allows for real-time access to Vital Records data which will be provided for monthly PRAMS sampling.