From Data to Action: Infant Sleep Position |
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Using Surveillance To Promote Public Health
Examples from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PUBLICATION YEAR 2002
Infant
Sleep Position
Positioning an infant for sleep has been identified as a modifiable
behavior that can decrease the risk for SIDS. Consistently placing a healthy
baby on its back to sleep for naps and at night has been found to reduce the
risk.21 SIDS is a diagnosis for the sudden death of an infant
less than 1 year of age that remains unexplained after a complete
investigation, which includes an autopsy; examination of the death scene;
and a review of the baby’s and/or family’s medical history, including an
assessment of symptoms or illness prior to the infant’s death.22
Georgia
The
Georgia Department of Human Resources Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
and Other Infant Death (SIDS and OID) Work Group regularly uses PRAMS data.
The working group has received $100,000 in state funds to coordinate and
promote SIDS risk-reduction and education activities throughout Georgia
using an interagency work plan in collaboration with the Georgia Public
Health SIDS and OID Information and Counseling Program and the SIDS Alliance
of Georgia.
The SIDS and OID Work Group provided 1997 PRAMS data on sleep position to
the Georgia Maternal and Infant Health Council (GMIHC). GMIHC used these
data, along with information from other sources, to initiate the adoption of
a revised position statement on supine sleep position. This position
statement fully supports “back sleeping” as the safest sleep position for
healthy, full-term infants. It was distributed to all birthing and pediatric
hospitals in the state and is available on the Georgia Public Health Web
site.
Programmatic changes have also resulted from SIDS and OID Work Group’s
use of PRAMS data:
- Training programs about sleep safety and SIDS have been developed that
incorporate information from PRAMS. The curricula for these programs have
been tailored to meet the needs of various groups, including public health
nurses, child-care providers, pre-hospital personnel, and child fatality
review teams.
- PRAMS data demonstrating racial differences in the prevalence of
positioning infants on their backs to sleep have provided the basis for
the current SIDS risk-reduction outreach initiative to the African
American community. Activities have included a public forum to address the
issue and to develop strategies to lower risk in the African American
population, a statewide billboard campaign, and a bus card initiative on
Atlanta-area transit authority buses.
North Carolina
The
North Carolina Back to Sleep (BTS) Campaign for SIDS Risk Reduction is a
statewide education and awareness campaign aimed at increasing the public’s
understanding about SIDS and ways to reduce the risks for SIDS. The North
Carolina BTS Campaign has used PRAMS data to provide a measure of the
statewide prevalence of placing infants to sleep on their backs and to
identify characteristics of families and babies at increased risk for SIDS.
This information has assisted in the targeting of media messages. PRAMS data
are also being used to track trends in infant sleep position over time in
the state.
The North Carolina BTS Campaign was awarded $40,000 in fiscal year
1999–2000 to use a multifaceted approach to increase awareness of infant
sleep position and to lower SIDS risks. The campaign focused on women and
their families as well as on the health care community. In 2000, more than
800 health professionals and lay health advisors participated in training or
presentations that included
PRAMS
data; participants included SIDS counselors, perinatal educators, health
educators, parenting educators, and members of the SIDS Alliance of the
Carolinas. The campaign also targeted licensed child care providers and
dispensed educational messages to over 9,000 caregivers. More than 300,000
posters, information sheets, light-switch covers, and foto-novellas (comic
book-like publications with photographs as illustrations) were distributed,
along with news releases in newspapers and on radio and television. The SIDS
Community Education Outreach and Training Demonstration Project used PRAMS
data in a grant application to demonstrate level of need and to identify
specific populations at increased risk for SIDS. The project received
$16,130 for fiscal year 2000–2001 from the CJ (Carly Jenna) Foundation for
SIDS to maximize the educational outreach of the existing network of SIDS
counselors, to strengthen the effectiveness of the North Carolina BTS
Campaign, and to focus on populations most at risk for SIDS such as African
Americans and Native Americans. One of the components of the education outreach strategy of
the BTS Campaign was to enhance local SIDS awareness and risk-reduction
community education programs that are managed by SIDS counselors at county
health departments throughout the state. The project entailed developing
training materials, media packets, and community contact forms for use in
SIDS community outreach training. Materials and a toolkit to assist SIDS
counselors in educational outreach and audience targeting were developed.
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Page last reviewed: 3/24/06
Page last modified: 3/24/06 Content source: Division
of Reproductive Health,
National Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion
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