Grantee: Regents of the University of Michigan (Youth Policy Lab)
Term: 2020 –2025
Principal Investigator: Robin Jacob, Ph.D., University of Michigan
Funding: $1,237,457
Summary: Michigan’s Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP) is a maternal infant home visiting program, implemented statewide, that promotes healthy pregnancies and infant growth and development with the ultimate goal of reducing infant mortality and morbidity. The program serves over 20,000 Medicaid-eligible families in Michigan each year and is estimated to cost $2,000 per family.
Under this project, researchers from the Youth Policy Lab at the University of Michigan will conduct an RCT with a sample of 9,000 Medicaid-eligible pregnant women to evaluate the effectiveness of MIHP. Since MIHP is currently available to allMedicaid-eligible women in Michigan, women cannot be randomly assigned to participate in the program. However, the rate of program take-up among eligible women is currently only 30 – 40%. Therefore, the study team will conduct the RCT using an “encouragement design.” Under this approach, a randomly assigned group of women will receive enhanced encouragement from a community health worker to enroll in MIHP (increasing the likelihood that they will participate in the program) and their outcomes will be compared to a control group of women who receive the typical MIHP outreach that is currently provided (and are thus less likely to participate in the program).
The RCT will measure the effect of MIHP on (i) rapid repeat pregnancies (births occurring less than 18 months apart); (ii) smoking during the third trimester; (iii) adverse birth outcomes (gestational age, birth weight, infant mortality); (iv) maternal and infant health services utilization; and (v) maternal and infant emergency room visits through 18 months after birth.
The study’s pre-specified analysis plan is linked here.
