The Linkages for Prevention project is a community-wide intervention, with a specific emphasis on health outcomes for low-income mothers and infants. The program aims to improve the way preventive health care services are organised and delivered by adopting a three-tiered approach: community-, practice- and family-level.
The primary objective of the project is to achieve process change that would lead to clinically relevant changes in client outcomes. It seeks to improve health outcomes by addressing specific care delivery processes at the level of clinical interaction between care providers and patients.
The community-level intervention aims to build lasting change in the organisation of health care in the community. It seeks to achieve policy level changes, engage multiple practice organisations, and enhance communication between public and private practice organisations to improve coordination and avoid duplication of services.
The objective of the practice-level interventions is to overcome specific barriers in the process of care delivery so that preventive services could be effectively delivered.
The family-level intervention seeks to address risk factors for adverse health outcomes via home visiting.
The project is for parents with children under the age of 2 and is particularly designed for low-income families.
The project has only been evaluated in the USA (Margolis et al. 2001).
A quasi-experimental design study was conducted with 208 people (103 people were in the intervention group and 105 people were in the control group). On average, mothers were 23 years old. The majority of participants were African American and at, or below, the poverty level.
The program has not been tested in Australia or with Aboriginal Australians.
Overall, the Linkages for Prevention project has a mixed effect on client outcomes.
Mixed research evidence (with adverse effects):
The Linkages for Prevention project had 3 intervention levels: community, practice and family.
The community-level intervention included:
The practice-level intervention included:
The family-level intervention included intensive home-visiting to pregnant women and their infants. Home visiting began when the mother presented for prenatal care. It involved 2 to 4 visits per month through the infant’s first year of life. Home visiting provided mothers with:
Home visits were conducted by a public health nurse and an early childhood educator. The early childhood educator was added to the nurse visitor to enhance the emphasis on early childhood development.
Not reported
One QED conducted in the USA, with 208 participants (Margolis et al. 2001).
15 Sep 2023
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