Identifying a Conceptual Approach for Assessing the Influence of Father Involvement on Maternal and Child Health

Research that assesses the influence of fathers on maternal and child health has been relatively limited. While there has been some progress in the analysis of father involvement in understanding child cognitive development, there are opportunities for public health researchers to further examine the role of father involvement in determining maternal and child health. The National Children's Study, for example, presents an opportunity to collect broad information on father involvement, which may ultimately lead to valuable advances in knowledge about its impact on maternal and child health. However, this data collection and analysis must be informed by conceptual approaches that provide a sound framework for interpreting analytic results. The purpose of this presentation is to describe a conceptual approach for measuring father involvement and to discuss the various types of analytic strategies that this approach may inform.