CENTERING PREGNANCY PLUS PROJECT

INTEGRATING PRENATAL CARE TO REDUCE HIV/STD AMONG TEENS

Project Background and Goals:
CenteringPregnancy Plus (CP+) is an innovative model of prenatal care, providing all aspects of care in a group setting with 8-10 women, led by two facilitators. Advantages of CP+ include:

• Increased contact time between patients and providers (20 minutes vs. 2 hours) without added cost
• CP+ builds on women’s motivations for a healthy pregnancy and capitalizes on willingness to change behaviors during pregnancy
• In a large multi-site clinical trial, CP+ has resulted in improved outcomes: reduced risk for preterm delivery, lower rates of STIs and rapid repeat pregnancy, greater patient and provider satisfaction.

This five-year project, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), aims to reduce risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and improve birth outcomes and health behaviors during and after pregnancy among adolescents (aged 14-21) receiving prenatal care in Community Health Centers (CHCs). This will be accomplished by implementing an innovative model of group prenatal care.

Project Aims are to:

1. Introduce an efficacious group prenatal care intervention (CP+) to CHCs
   
   
2. Test effectiveness of CP+ and identify potential mechanisms of the effects of group prenatal care
   
   
3. Conduct process evaluation to identify factors that influence uptake, fidelity and sustainability

Fourteen CHCs will be offered training and support to provide the CP+ model of group prenatal care. One hundred pregnant adolescents from each site will be followed to assess outcomes. We hypothesize that CHCs will successfully adopt CP+ and that it will result in significant reductions in HIV-related risk and improvements in perinatal outcomes.

PROJECT TIME FRAME: August 1, 2006 – July 31st, 2011

# OF PARTICIPATING CENTERS: Fourteen (14)

FUNDING SOURCES: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH): R01-MH074394/ R01-MH074399