Evaluating the Healthy Start Program: A Life Course Perspective

Excerpt

The Healthy Start Initiative begun in 1991 in 15 sites, now currently in 104 sites, is the largest federal program directly dedicated to reducing disparities in Maternal and Infant Health status in high risk communities. In this issue of the Maternal and Child Health Journal, two articles deriving from the most recent second national evaluation of Healthy Start Initiative are presented that characterize successfully implemented program sites from the perspectives of the local staff [1] and participants [2]. Given the life course of this program, the current evaluation reflects on Healthy Start in its “adolescence”—a young, fully operational program; no longer an “initiative” but now a legislatively mandated program. However, Healthy Start is not yet a robust, institutionalized, national “adult” program; it still reflects much local community variability and experimentation with new programmatic ideas to achieve its disparity reduction goals. These two articles, viewed from a life course perspective, describe the Healthy Start Initiative currently, place its achievements and limitations in context, and point to several new enhancements to strengthen it as it goes forward. …