MCHWG -- Current Research and Activities

MCH Journal Club

Due to an increasing interest from students for additional MCH-related activities, the MCHWG is currently offering an MCH Journal Club. This is another opportunity for students interested in MCH to engage with MCH faculty and broaden their education. 2013 Journal Club dates are: February 6, March 6, April 3, and May 1. All meetings will be held in the 11th floor conference room at 12-1pm.

Participants will be required to read the article chosen for discussion prior to each meeting.

For more information and to sign-up for MCH Journal Club, please contact Dr. Renee Davis at Renee.Davis@DrexelMed.edu

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MCH Tea

In February, 2012, the MCHWG held the first MCH Tea at DUSPH. Students, faculty, and MCH community professionals were invited for afternoon tea and discussion related to current MCH events both within the School of Public Health and in the broader community. This event was well-received by all that were involved and we anticipate having similar events in the near future.

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Community Health & Prevention (CHP) Educational Forums

The MCHWG is committed to stimulating discussion on MCH-related topics within the Drexel University community. One way in which we will do this is by participating in educational forums sponsored by the Department of Community Health and Prevention in the School of Public Health. These forums are intended to allow students and faculty the opportunity to discuss a variety of community health and MCH-related topics in a relaxed, open environment. The forums are composed of a brief presentation by a CHP faculty member or MCHWG member followed by a discussion and question and answer session. All are welcome.

The May 8, 2013 CHP forum will be presented by members of the MCHWG and will have an MCH focus.

A light lunch will be provided.

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MCHWG Current Research

The members of the MCHWG are involved in a wide array of MCH-related research. The grids below provide examples of MCH topics being studied by some of our members.

Maternal Health and Birth Outcomes

Project	MCHWG Member	Funding	Description and Outcome
Prenatal Care Capacity in Philadelphia	Nathalie Bartle, Marjie Mogul, Deborah Roebuch, Letty Thall, and Mridu Pandey	Community Health & Prevention Department grant	In collaboration with Maternity Care Coalition and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, this is a preliminary study of prenatal care capacity in Philadelphia.
Views of Philadelphia Women on Health & the Outcome of Pregnancy	Nathalie Bartle, Marjie Mogul, Shale Maulana and Mona Sarfaty	PA Department of Health	In this pilot study, the MCHWG, Maternity Care Coalition and Thomas Jefferson University are collaborating to run focus groups at a Philadelphia church to help assess various opinions and related to pregnancy and childbirth among three different groups of women.
Perinatal Health Disparities between Foreign-born and US- born Black Women	Joan Bloch and Renee Davis	NIH	Exploring individual-level and contextual-level similarities and differences among at-risk Black women for preterm birth based on country of birth.
Research Collaboration Studying Health Care and Birth Outcomes among Migrant Women of African Ancestry in the US and Israel	Joan Bloch, Jane Greene Ryan, Linda Dayer-Berenson, Arnold Cohen, Lauren Plante, Jennifer Culhane, David Webb, Nora Lee, Renee Davis, Edgar Chou, Yuan An, and Tony (Xiaohua) Hu	Louis and Bessie Stein Family Fellowship	The key objective of this project is to create an interdisciplinary international collaboration between Drexel University and Ben-Gurion University to engage in cross-cultural research seeking new insights into the problem of racial and ethnic health disparities related to preterm birth.
Pilot study: Nursing Care during Pregnancyand Childbirth for Women with Asperger Syndrome	Joan Bloch	Not funded	This pilot study is an exploratory descriptive study to assess what the particular needs may be for women with Asperger’s Syndrome during pregnancy, labor and delivery and postpartum.
Philadelphia Neighborhoods, Maternal Obesity, and Birth Outcomes In a Hospital-Based Population	Nora Lee	Drexel SPH/Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics	An epidemiologic study on the impact of residential neighborhood factors (using GIS and US Census data) on the risk for preterm birth among obese women delivering at Hahnemann Hospital.
Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI) Network	Nora Lee	NIH/NIEHS	A multi-site 10-year prospective cohort pregnancy study of prenatal and early childhood risk factors for autism in families already affected by autism.
Perinatal Exposure to Airborne Pollutants and Associations with Autism Phenotype (PEAP)	Nora Lee	Autism Speaks	Study of the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange cohort to examine prenatal air pollution exposure, neighborhood deprivation, and autism risk.
Acceptability of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) in Pregnancy	PI: Deborah Kim, MD Marian Moseley, LSW, CPH, Sub-Investigator	Not funded	If given information about the treatment of depression using transcranial magnetic stimulation in the area of the brain thought to cause depression and given pregnant women’s reluctance to take oral anti- depressants, would pregnant women choose this treatment as an alternative to oral anti-depressants?

Child and Adolescent Health

Project	MCHWG Member	Funding	Description and Outcome
American Academy of Pediatrics Pennsylvania Chapter Medical Home Care Coordination Initiative	Renee Turchi	PA DOH MCHB	This award supports a statewide initiative for clinicians/staff on care of adoption and implementation of medical home in pediatric practice for children and youth with special health care needs.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Center of Excellence Subcontract; Philadelphia’s Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment Initiative	Renee Turchi	Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Agency	This award supports diagnostic capacity and treatment of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders in children in a clinic at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
The Child Health Project for Urban Children	Renee Turchi	United Health Care – Healthy Heroes Grant	This grant supports work around childhood obesity in an urban pediatric clinic.
Care Coordination and Medical Home	Renee Turchi	American Academy of Pediatrics, Leonard P. Rome CATCH Visiting Professorship Grant	This grant supports a visiting professorship and education around care coordination for clinicians and residents.
Integrating Systems of Care for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs	Renee Turchi	U.S.Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA); Maternal & Child Health Bureau (MCHB)	This award supports a statewide initiative for integration of community resources, family, youth, and clinicians/staff on medical home in pediatric practice for children and youth with special health care needs.
Health Behaviors in Children with Special Health Care Needs	Maggie O'Neil and Renee Turchi	PDPH MCH Community Activity Grant	2nd year MPH student CBMP. Student won Research Day Award at Drexel.
Electronic Community Resource Database (ECRD): Finding resources to promote health behaviors	Maggie O’Neil and Renee Turchi	Not funded	Networking and finding resources to populate this database. Collaboration with the iSchool to create electronic formats to disseminate resource information to families & PCPs to support health behavior change and promote improved health.
Physical Activity and Healthy Eating for Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN)	Maggie O’Neil and Renee Turchi	PDPH, MCFH, Division for CSHCN	Student-conducted parent-child interviews and took health measures on children (BMI, HR, BP) to identify child health status, child and family health behaviors and community facilitators and barriers to physical activity and healthy eating.
Validating accelerometry to measure physical activity in children with special needs	Maggie O’Neil	NIH	2 year pilot project for an NIH R24 grant. Preparation phase is complete; data collection phase is now underway.

Environmental Factors Influencing MCH Status/Outcomes [Note: Environmental factors could be social (family structure/support) or physical (built environment)]

Project	MCHWG Member	Funding	Description and Outcome
Breastfeeding and the workplace	Jennifer Breaux	Not funded	Adoption of breastfeeding friendly policies within the Drexel Community. Began as a student practicum project and will continue through support of the MCHWG.
Public Health and Law Collaboration: The Philadelphia Lead Court Study	Carla Campbell	Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Public Health Law Research Program Grant	This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Philadelphia Lead Court as an innovative law enforcement strategy for ensuring remediation of lead hazards in homes of children with elevated blood lead levels. It entailed both a quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Does knowing the amount of breast milk or formula in the bottle influence mothers’ feeding behaviors?	Alison Ventura	Not funded	This experimental study tests the hypothesis that knowing the amount of breast milk or formula in a bottle influences mothers’ feeding behaviors.
Identifying mothers with responsive and unresponsive feeding behaviors	Alison Ventura	NIH	This observational study aims to identify and distinguish mothers who are responsive to their infants’ hunger and fullness cues during infant-feeding interactions versus those who are not.
Improvement of parenting self-efficacy as a of healthy infant feeding practices in low income, formula-feeding mothers	Alison Ventura	Drexel Community Research Grant	The goal of this project is to partner with the Philadelphia Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to improve the health and well-being of children in West Philadelphia utilizing a curriculum that teaches responsive parenting skills to low-income mothers of formula-feeding infants. It will focus on 1) educating mothers about appropriate and responsive bottle-feeding behaviors and 2) facilitating mothers’ abilities to follow nutrition advice by improving parenting self-efficacy.
Iron deficiency as a novel predictor of food neophobia in 6- to 24-month-old children	Alison Ventura	Drexel Career Development Award	The objective of this pilot study is to explore whether the cognitive deficits that result from iron deficiency during early childhood are related to food neophobia (the reluctance to try novel foods).
Counselor-Camper Interactions Surrounding Food And Eating At Camp Mealtimes	Alison Ventura	The American Camp Association	This exploratory study will assess counselors’ self-reports of their mealtime interactions with campers. Data from this study will inform the development and evaluation of an intervention to train counselors on how to promote campers’ healthy eating behaviors.

MCH Program Evaluation

Specific Research

Researcher

Funding

Publication

Local Evaluation of a Newborn Screening Program for Sickle Cell Disease

Nathalie Bartle and
Reneé Davis

HRSA/MCHB

A 3 year local evaluation of a community intervention performed by the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Chapter (SCDAA/PDVC).

The MCHWG and Student Research

MCHWG members are also very committed to assisting students with MCH research opportunities. All full-time students enrolled in the MPH program at Drexel University School of Public Health are required to complete a Community-Based Masters Project (CBMP) during the second year. The CBMP encompasses the research experiences for the students as they partner with a community-oriented, health-related agency, and work as an integral part of the organization during their second-year. Topics for student CBMPs vary greatly within the many disciplines of public health. However, each year there are several students who focus on MCH issues. Below are tables containing some of the MCH-related CBMPs conducted during the last two academic years. Each of these students worked closely with an active MCHWG member.

2012 Selected MCHWG Student Research

Project	MCHWG Student Member	Faculty Advisor	Community Preceptor	Community Site
Impact Evaluation of the Society of Family Planning	Lauren Bruce (HMP)	Jennifer Kolker	Marlo Polonsky	Society of Family Planning
Prenatal Care Capacity Assessment in Philadelphia	Rosie Ganser (CHP)	Jennifer Breaux and Nathalie Bartle	Deborah Roebuck	Philadelphia Department of Public Health
wht u need 2 knw: Qualitative Study on Teens' Use of Texting for Sexual Health Information	Latoya Johnson (CHP)	Nathalie Bartle	Jamie Beck	CHOICE (Concern for Health Options, Information, Care, and Education)
Assessing cultural competence of service providers within a network of HIV/AIDS care providers	Adedipupo King (CHP)	Nathalie Bartle	Rashidah Abdul-Khabeer, RN, MHS, PhDc	Family Planning Council, Circle of Care
The Healthy Lifestyles Program	Lauren Forbes (CHP)	Carla Campbell	Siobhan Ideshi	Kensington KenCrest Center
Diabetes and Disparities	Theodora Isekenegbe (EPI)		Kathleen Millay, BA, RN, MPHP(c) and Judith E Burgess, MD	Mercy Health System
The Public Health Impact of Abortion Stigma: Incorporating Abortion Into The Continuum of Reproductive Health	Courtney Kirkland (EPI)		Marie McClay, CRNP, MSN, Drexel University College of Medicine, Department of OB/GYN	Drexel University College of Medicine, The Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning

Click here for a table outlining 2010 – 2011 MCHWG Student Research