Impact of a universal perinatal home-visiting program on reduction in race disparities in maternal and child health: Two randomised controlled trials and a field quasi-experiment

Background Public health interventions must become accountable for reduction of race disparities, particularly among Black, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic White families in the United States. Family Connects (FC) is a universal perinatal home-visiting program that assesses family-specific needs, offers support, and provides connections to community resources to address identified needs. Two previously-published randomised controlled trials and a field quasi-experiment have shown positive impact on maternal mental health, infant emergency medical care utilization, and government investigations for child maltreatment; however, these reports have not tested impact on reducing race disparities in these outcomes. The current report examined three questions in these trials: 1) the extent of race disparities in maternal and infant health and well-being, absent intervention; 2) whether intervention can be implemented with high reach and fidelity among all race groups; and 3) whether assignment to intervention reduces race disparities in important outcomes. Methods Data were re-examined from: 1) a randomised controlled trial of 4777 birthing families in Durham, NC, USA; 2) a replication randomised controlled trial of 923 birthing families in Durham, NC, USA; and 3) a quasi-experiment of 988 birthing families in rural NC, USA. Families were classified as Black, Hispanic, Non-Hispanic White, or Other. Disparity reduction was tested by the interaction effect between treatment assignment and race. Findings 1) In the absence of intervention, large and statistically significant differences between Black familes and Non-Hispanic White families were found in maternal anxiety, maternal depression, father non-support, child emergency medical care, and child maltreatment investigations. Few differences were found between Non-Hispanic White familes and Hispanic families. 2) High rates of participation in treatment were found for each race group. 3) Across studies, assignment to FC was associated with statistically significant reductions in 7 of 12 disparities, in maternal anxiety and depression, father non-support, infant emergency medical care, and child maltreatment investigations. Interpretation This study provides a method, metric, and mandate to prioritise testing of whether public health interventions reduce race disparities in family outcomes. Copyright (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)