Abstract
Health and social inequality are tightly linked and still pose an important public health problem. However, vulnerable and disadvantaged populations are difficult to reach for health-related interventions. Given the long-lasting effects of an adverse, particular nutrition-related, intrauterine and neonatal environment on health development (perinatal programming), an early and easy access is essential for sustainable interventions. The goal of this explorative study was therefore to elucidate whether an existing access of family midwives (FMs) to families in need of support could be an option to implement effective public health and nutrition interventions. To that end three research objectives were formulated: (1) to determine whether a discernible impact of home visits by FMs can be described; (2) to identify subgroups among these families in need of more specific interventions; (3) to determine how relevant nutrition-related topics are for both FMs and the supported families. For addressing these objectives a mixed methods design was used: Routine documentation data from 295 families visited by a family midwife (FM) were analyzed (secondary analysis), and structured expert interviews with FMs were conducted and analyzed. Study reporting followed the STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology) statement. Based on the FMs reports, a significant improvement (p < 0.001) regarding psycho-social variables could be determined after the home visits. Single mothers, however, seemed to benefit less from the FMs service compared to their counterparts (p = 0.015). Nutritional counseling was demanded by 89% of the families during the home visits. In addition, nutrition-related topics were reported in the interviews to be of high interest to both families and the FMs. Based on the obtained results it is concluded that FMs home visits offer a promising access to vulnerable and disadvantaged families for implementing nutrition-related preventive activities.
Highlights
The goal of this explorative study was to elucidate whether an existing access of family midwives (FMs) to families in need of support could be an option to implement effective public health and nutrition interventions
To that end three research objectives were formulated: (1) to determine whether a discernible impact of home visits by FMs can be described; (2) to identify subgroups among these families in need of more specific interventions; (3) to determine how relevant nutrition-related topics are for both FMs and the supported families
For addressing these objectives a mixed methods design was used: Routine documentation data from 295 families visited by a family midwife (FM) were analyzed, and structured expert interviews with FMs were conducted and analyzed
Summary
Numerous studies and reviews describe the tight link between social status and health [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]: a low socio-economic status (SES) has been shown to be positively associated with health-risk behaviors such as smoking [9,10,11,12], low physical activity [13,14,15] or unhealthy diet [16,17,18]. Children from vulnerable and disadvantaged families are more frequently affected by developmental disorders, dental problems as well as mental and behavioral disorders [24,25,26,27,28]. They perceive their own health and health-related quality of life as reduced, and they more frequently develop health-risk behaviors such as smoking, physical inactivity or inappropriate diet later in life [24,25,26,27,28]
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