Evaluating Prenatal Care Evaluations

Abstract

Historically, public funding for Maternal and Infant Health funds has been used for prenatal care programs aimed at high-risk pregnant women. These programs are designed to reinforce obstetricians' recommendations for women to get follow up tests and procedures, eat a healthy diet, and abstain from high risk behaviors. The underlying assumption has been that these programs improve pregnancy outcomes. Currently, it is becoming increasingly important, for public health administrators to be accountable to the funders upon whom they depend. Because health care resources are becoming scarcer, it is crucial to allocate resources to programs that are effective in achieving their goals. Since an underlying assumption does not exist regarding the benefits of prenatal care on birth outcomes, measuring the effects of prenatal care programs on birth outcomes is essential for demonstrating accountability to funding sources. Adequate funds are usually not available to measure the long term impact that the ten programs have had on birth outcomes. Appropriate evaluation of prenatal programs will require programmatic goals to include impact on birth outcome, and funding to enable evaluation measures to include such goals.