Increasing Access to Prenatal Care: An Evaluation of Minority Health Coalitions' Early Pregnancy Project

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Abstract
Early prenatal care utilization is a problem for racial and ethnic minority women in Indiana. Minority health coalitions in Indiana developed early pregnancy care coordination projects to address this need. To evaluate project outcomes, birth certificates of infants born to project mothers were matched with birth certificates of infants whose mothers did not receive care coordination. Results showed that project mothers were significantly more likely to start prenatal care earlier, had better prenatal care utilization as measured by the Kessner Index (Kessner, Singer, Kalk, & Schlesinger, 1973), and had better adequacy of care as measured by the APNCU Index (Kotelchuck, 1994) than the noncare-coordinated mothers. Although the project was successful in meeting its primary objective, specific recommendations are made for community health nurses to partner with the coalitions in improving the content of prenatal care, decreasing sociocultural barriers to care, and assisting in the evaluation of outcomes of f...