142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

298544
MCH Service Delivery Profile of LHDs: Relationship with the Performance of the Essential Public Health Services"

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Sunday, November 16, 2014

Arden Handler, DrPH , Community Health Sciences, University of Illinois School of Public Health, Chicago, IL
Laura Snebold, MPH , NACCHO, Washington, DC
Hale Thompson, MA, MS , School of Public Health, Division of Community Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Carolyn J. Leep, MS, MPH , Research & Evaluation, National Association of County and City Health Officials, Washington, DC
Comfort Olorunsaiye, MPH , College of Health and Human Services Dept. of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
L. Michele Issel, PhD , College of Health and Human Services Dept. of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
In the last decade, maternal and child health (MCH) programs in local health departments (LHDs) have faced a changing landscape. While MCH service delivery may have changed, the expectation to perform the Essential Public Health Services (EPHS) continues.  The Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health (MCAH) 2012 Survey was developed by NACCHO and the UIC School of Public Health with input from CityMatCH and AMCHP and distributed to a nationally representative sample of 546 LHDs, randomly selected by NACCHO and stratified by jurisdiction size (<50,000, 50,000-499,999, 500,000+); LHDs serving large jurisdictions were oversampled. The survey included questions about LHD MCAH services and questions to measure the performance of the EPHS.  The mean number of services provided by LHDs was 13.1 or 39.4% (95% CI 36.5-42.2%) of the 35 possible services. On average, medium sized LHDs provided significantly more services (14.2) than small (12.4) or large LHDs (13.0). There was a significant positive relationship between the number of services provided and overall EPHS performance (p <.01).  In three of four service domains, those LHDS providing more than 75% of services in that domain had significantly higher mean EPHS scores. In sum, LHDs with a more robust service delivery portfolio were more likely to have higher EPHS scores. However, as these are cross-sectional data, the direction of the relationship is not clear. While prior research suggests that LHDs with more comprehensive services are more likely to perform the EPHS, the mix and match of services that maximizes EPHS performance needs to be explored.

Learning Areas:

Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the current MCH services delivery profile of local health departments in the US. Explain the importance of the MCH services delivery profile to the performance of the Essential Public Health Services.

Keyword(s): Maternal and Child Health, Public Health Infrastructure

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a Professor of Maternal and Child Health at UIC-SPH and was Co-PI on a project to investigate the current Local Health Department MCH service delivery landscape.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.