Programs and services to prevent pregnancy, childbearing, and poor birth outcomes among adolescents in rural areas of the southeastern United States.

PURPOSE: To illustrate how rural adolescents' needs for pregnancy prevention and improved birth outcomes are currently being addressed, and to suggest strategies for future programs. METHODS: Local and state-level informants knowledgeable about services to adolescents in the Southeastern United States were identified. Semistructured interviews were used to determine the program start date and time frame, funding sources, target population, participating counties, implementing agency or organization, specific program services, and status of program activities. These programs were categorized by the type of services offered and the population targeted. RESULTS: The most common adolescent services in the rural Southeast attempt either to improve life options of youth, reduce sexual activity, or provide prenatal and postnatal care. Unlike urban areas where there are a variety of family planning providers, in the rural Southeast, health departments are the primary source of family planning for adolescents. There are no abortion providers in most rural areas of the Southeast. The majority of rural programs that include adolescents among the population served are developed for all women rather than specifically for adolescents. Programs specific to rural adolescents are described. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of programs in the rural Southeast address only selected adolescent health issues. Successful interventions require locally supported, multipronged, intensive approaches with consistent messages targeted to high-risk populations. Evaluation tools are needed to determine the effectiveness of each component of prevention programs.

Adolescent health services in North Carolina's local health departments.

The purpose of this study was to assess availability of clinical health services and special adolescent health programs for those aged 10-19 years administered by local health departments in North Carolina, and to evaluate factors that were associated with the existence of specialized adolescent programs, comprehensive services, and school services. We used self-report surveys mailed to 100 county health directors. All counties responded. One in five (21%) North Carolina youth received one or more health department service in 1990. Thirty-four health departments have programs or services specifically designed for adolescents; 7 health departments provide comprehensive services. The majority of health departments (85%) provide services in public schools, most often health education or counseling. Counties with more adolescents and with higher per capita income were more likely to have adolescent programs and more likely to provide comprehensive clinics. Health departments with school services served proportionally twice as many of their county's adolescents as those without school services. We concluded that few local health departments in North Carolina provide comprehensive health services to their youth. Community-wide participation and state support are needed to improve public sector access to comprehensive health care for adolescents in North Carolina and in other states with decentralized, county-controlled public health systems.

Passive smoking during the first year of life.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: A description of passive smoking during the first year of life might assist planning preventive efforts. METHODS: Changes in the ecology of passive smoking were investigated in a sample of infants in central North Carolina followed from birth to one year of age. RESULTS: The prevalence of tobacco smoke absorption, indicated by excretion of cotinine, increased from 53 percent to 77 percent (95% CI of difference: 14, 35) during the first year of life. Most infants (92 percent) excreting cotinine at three weeks of age were also excreting it at one year. Moreover, 61 percent of infants not excreting cotinine at age three weeks were excreting it at one year. This increase reflected an increased exposure to household and, particularly, nonhousehold sources of smoke; the proportion of infants exposed to nonhousehold smokers increased from 14 percent to 36 percent. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that prevention of the onset of passive smoking should begin very early.

Ecology of passive smoking by young infants.

This study provides a detailed description of passive smoking by 433 infants (mean age 18 days) enrolled from a representative population of healthy neonates in central North Carolina during 1986 and 1987. Sixty-four percent (276) lived in households with smokers or had contact with nonhousehold smokers. During the week before data collection, two thirds (184) of these 276 infants reportedly had tobacco smoke produced in their presence. Seventy-five percent of smoking mothers smoked near their infants. The amount smoked by the mother near the infant correlated with the amount smoked near the infant by nonmaternal smokers. Cotinine, an indicator of smoke absorption, was found in the urine of 60% (258) of all study infants. The amount smoked in the infant's presence, as well as the amount smoked farther away from the infant, especially by the mother, were the most significant correlates of the urine cotinine concentration. The results of this study suggest that efforts to reduce passive smoking in young infants should emphasize the importance of the mother's smoking behavior, smoke produced anywhere in the home, and household social influences on smoking behavior near the infant.

Factors related to school absence among children with cardiac conditions.

This study compared psychosocial and health factors related to school absence among 62 children with cardiac disease and 62 age-, sex-, and race-matched peers without chronic health conditions. Parents of children with cardiac conditions perceived their children as more vulnerable and rated themselves and their children as having less control over improving their children's health status than did parents of the well children. Increased school absentee rates for the cardiac group were associated with measures of illness severity, parental patterns of absenting their child from school for minor illnesses, and decreased belief in their child's ability to improve his or her health status. For the well comparison group, increased absence was related to external health locus of control beliefs, increased maternal sick days, and demographic factors. School absence was not significantly related to social adaptation, self-esteem, or school achievement for either the well or cardiac groups.

Acute respiratory infections are the leading cause of death in children in developing countries.

PIP: A paper by Hazlett et al. is of particular importance because it addresses the question of the role of acute respiratory infections (ARI) as a cause of morbidity and especially mortality in 3rd world children. Diarrheal disease and malnutrition are generally thought to be the major killers of these children, and until recently little attention was paid to ARI. Recent data suggest that ARI are more important than realized previously and almost certainly are the leading cause of death in children in developing countries. It is estimated that each year more than 15 million children less than 5 years old die, obviously most in socially and economically deprived countries. Since death usually is due to a combination of social, economic, and medical factors, it is impossible to obtain precise data on the causes of death. It has been estimated that 5 million of the deaths are due to diarrhea, over 3 million due to pneumonia, 2 million to measles, 1.5 million to pertussis, 1 million to tetanus, and the other 2.5 million or less to other causes. Since pertussis is an acute respiratory infection and measles deaths frequently are due to infections of the respiratory tract, it is becoming clear that ARI are associated with more deaths than any other single cause. The significance of this is emphasized when the mortality rates from ARI in developed and underdeveloped nations are compared. Depending on the countries compared, age group, and other factors, increases of 5-10-fold have been reported. These factors raise the question of why respiratory infections are so lethal for 3rd world children. The severity of pneumonia, which is the cause of most ARI deaths, seems to be the big difference. Data are accumulating which show that bacterial infections are associated with the majority of severe infections and "Streptococcus pneumoniae" and "Haemophilus influenzae," infrequent causes of pneumonia in developed world children, are the microorganisms incriminated in a large proportion of cases. The increase in severity of ARI in 3rd world children has been associated, at least in port, with malnutrition, diarrheal diseases, an increased parasite load, and more recently with air pollution. Crowding and other factors associated with poverty doubtless also play a role. How these various factors contribute to increased severity and lethality is not well understood. The increasing recognition of the important role played by ARI as causes of mortality in 3rd world children is encouraging. The UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has joined the World Health Organization in the battle against ARI in developing countries, and the 2 organizations recently issued a joint statement on the subject in which they pledged to collaborate to integrate an ARI component into the primary health care program.^ieng

Measuring the exposure of infants to tobacco smoke. Nicotine and cotinine in urine and saliva.

The effect of parental smoking on the well-being of infants and children is an important public health concern. It is necessary, however, to validate the existence of such exposure objectively before an evaluation of the effects of parental smoking behavior on the child's health can be made. We measured the concentration of nicotine and its major metabolite, cotinine, in the saliva and urine of 32 infants with household exposure to tobacco smoke, and 19 unexposed infants. The concentrations were significantly higher in the exposed group than in the unexposed group, with the best indicator of chronic exposure being the urinary cotinine:creatinine ratio; median in the exposed group, 351 ng per milligram (225.3 nmol per millimole); median in the unexposed group, 4 ng per milligram (2.6 nmol per millimole) (P less than 0.0001). There was a direct relation between cotinine excretion by the infants and the self-reported smoking behavior of the mothers during the previous 24 hours (r = 0.67, P = 0.0001). Our results indicate that infants who were exposed to tobacco smoke absorbed its constituents and that urinary excretion of cotinine is a reliable measure of such exposure in infants.

Sexually transmitted diseases in sexually abused children.

Over a 4-year period, 409 cases of suspected sexual abuse of children were reviewed to study sexually transmitted disease (STD). Sexually transmitted disease was identified in 54 (13%) of the 409 children: 46 cases of gonorrhea, six cases of syphilis, four cases of trichomoniasis, and three cases of condyloma acuminata. Nine of the 46 children with cultures positive for gonorrhea did not have a history of discharge. Four of the six children with syphilis also had a gonococcal infection. One child with syphilis had condyloma. Only one child had clinical features of syphilis. Sexually transmitted disease was more likely to be transmitted by an extended family member or a nonfamily member than by a father/stepfather (P less than .001). Laboratory tests that identify sexually transmitted disease may aid in the diagnosis of sexual abuse.

Perinatal precursors of home stimulation in families of sick newborns.

The relationship between biological, psychosocial, and demographic perinatal factors and the adequacy of the children's home environment was evaluated in a sample of 69 families 3 years after their children had been discharged from a newborn intensive care unit. Almost 40% of the variance (p = .0001) in the amount of home stimulation was explained by income, race, and maternal age. Three maternal perinatal psychosocial characteristics explained an additional 12% of the variance (p = .0001). Both maternal demographic and psychosocial factors appear to contribute to the preschool home environment. Research focused on the precursors of an adequate early home environment could suggest specific interventions for the primary prevention of parenting problems.

Determinants of foster care placement for the maltreated child.

This study examined the records of the North Carolina Central Registry of Child Abuse and Neglect to determine which social, family, and child characteristics were most influential in the decision to place a child in foster care. These records contained all theoretically relevant factors as well as demographic data. Analysis included the computation of odds ratios for foster care for each of 250 variables. A maximum likelihood logistic regression model was constructed to obtain the independent and cumulative contribution of each factor. Some expected variables such as parental stress factors (substance abuse) and types of abuse (burns and scalds) placed a child at a significant risk for placement in foster care (p less than 0.01). However, less obvious factors such as referral source (law enforcement agencies) or geographic area also placed children at risk. Overall, the model explained little of the variance of these decisions (R2 = 0.168) and poorly predicted placement (sensitivity 66.3 per cent, specificity 74.6 per cent). Using existing data, we were unable to adequately describe the decision process in selecting foster care.

Determinants of foster care placement for the maltreated child.

This study examined the records of the North Carolina Central Registry of Child Abuse and Neglect to determine which social, family, and child characteristics were most influential in the decision to place a child in foster care. These records contained all theoretically relevant factors as well as demographic data. Analysis included the computation of odds ratios for foster care for each of 250 variables. A maximum likelihood logistic regression model was constructed to obtain the independent and cumulative contribution of each factor. Some expected variables such as parental stress factors (substance abuse) and types of abuse (burns and scalds) placed a child at a significant risk for placement in foster care (p less than 0.01). However, less obvious factors such as referral source (law enforcement agencies) or geographic area also placed children at risk. Overall, the model explained little of the variance of these decisions (R2 = 0.168) and poorly predicted placement (sensitivity 66.3 per cent, specificity 74.6 per cent). Using existing data, we were unable to adequately describe the decision process in selecting foster care.

The association between mothers' social support and provision of stimulation to their children.

Specific forms of maternal social support were analyzed for their relationship to a validated measure of home stimulation (the Inventory of Home Stimulation). The 69 study families were chosen to represent a wide variability of social support at the time of the child's birth. All index children had been discharged from a neonatal intensive care unit 3 years before the study. The overall Maternal Social Support Index (MSSI) developed for the study explained a significant (p less tha 0.1) amount of variance in the home stimulation of 3-year-olds after income, race, maternal age, and other possible confounding variables had been controlled. In addition, specific MSSI items were strongly associated with various forms of environmental stimulation. The data suggest that augmentation of specific aspects of mothers' social support networks may increase their children's informal learning opportunities.

Occurrence of Diplococcus pneumoniae in the upper respiratory tract of children.

The patterns of colonization of D. pneumoniae were studied over a 46-month period in a group of young children in a day-care center. Forty-four percent of nasal cultures yielded D. pneumoniae. The most frequently isolated serotypes--6, 19, and 23--accounted for 49% of the isolates; the nine most common serotypes included 80% of the isolates. Individual serotypes frequently were carried for several months. Reacquisition of a serotype previously carried occurred frequently. There was limited spread of serotypes among the children despite prolonged contact.