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F X Mulvihill

Publications and source records attributed to F X Mulvihill.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

After graduation, what? An analysis of the job placements of graduates of public health maternal and child health training programs. Project of the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health.

OBJECTIVES: In 1995, the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health (ATMCH) decided that information about the employment status of program graduates was essential to attempts to improve MCH curricula. METHOD: ATMCH requested information from 13 MCH programs in schools of public health funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau and 12 provided information about their master's degree graduates in the 1990-1994 period, including the year of graduation, degree, Bureau traineeship support, position held, and employing agency. RESULTS: The total number of graduates was 742. Four programs averaged less than 8 graduates per year (small); six, 10-16 (midsize); and two more than 22 (large). More than 90% of graduates received a M.P.H. In the 10 programs that provided data on Bureau support, 46% received traineeship support from the Bureau. Midsize programs had the largest percentage of graduates receiving traineeship support. Overall, 45% of graduates were in administrative positions, 32% were involved in patient care, 20% were in policy-analytic positions, and 3% in other positions. Forty-seven percent of program graduates entered into or continued in community-based agencies, 18% in government agencies, 17% in academic or research agencies, and 18% in other agencies. Program size was significantly associated with both position and the agency in which the graduate was employed. Bureau traineeship support was associated with employing agency. CONCLUSIONS: The study suggests the need for changes in MCH curricula, enhanced education opportunities in specialty skill areas, and an ongoing survey of graduates of MCH programs.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Medical, psychosocial, and behavioral risk factors do not explain the increased risk for low birth weight among black women.

OBJECTIVE: Our purpose was to determine whether various demographic, behavioral, housing, psychosocial, or medical characteristics explain the difference in pregnancy outcome between black and white women. STUDY DESIGN: A sample of 1491 multiparous women with singleton pregnancies, 69% of whom were black and 31% of whom were white and who enrolled for care between Oct. 1, 1985, and March 30, 1988, participated in the study. The frequencies of various demographic, medical environmental, and psychosocial risk factors among black and white women were determined. The outcome measures were birth weight, gestational age, fetal growth restriction, preterm delivery and low birth weight. RESULTS: White infants were heavier and born later than black infants. The white women in this sample smoked more cigarettes, moved more frequently, and had worse psychosocial scores. The black women had lower incomes, were less likely to be married, and had more hypertension, anemia, and diabetes. Besides race, only maternal height, weight, blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking had a consistent impact on outcome and did not explain the difference in outcome between the two groups. CONCLUSION: In this low-income population, many of the risk factors for low birth weight were more common among white women than black women. Nevertheless, black women had more infants born preterm, with growth restriction, and with low birth weight than did white women. The various maternal characteristics studied did not explain these differences.

Black People↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Employment-related stress and preterm delivery: a contextual examination.

Studies of employment-related stress as a risk factor for preterm delivery suggest that contextual factors unrelated to occupation, as well as work-related characteristics, must be examined in assessing this relationship. In this study, the relationship of work and contextual characteristics--assessed at midpregnancy and including scores on an occupational fatigue index--to preterm delivery was examined among 943 black and 425 white low-income multiparous women who were at risk for a poor pregnancy outcome. At 24 to 26 weeks gestational age, a 77-item questionnaire was self-administered to obtain detailed information on sociodemographic and contextual characteristics, home physical activities, and occupational characteristics. Questions in the occupational section of the questionnaire included most of those previously used by Mamelle and coworkers in 1984 and 1987 to construct an occupational fatigue index. The overall preterm delivery rate for black women was 14.0 percent and for white women, 9.6 percent. No relationships were observed between age, education, or marital status and preterm delivery, or between work status, hours per week, transportation, travel time, reliability of child care, or home physical activity and preterm delivery for either black women or white women. Black (but not white) women who continued to work at midpregnancy and who reported being able to take rest breaks when they felt tired had a lower preterm delivery rate (10.4 percent versus 21.9 percent; P = 0.031) compared with those who could or did not. Generally, scores for individual sources and levels of occupational fatigue, as well as total occupational fatigue index scores, were unrelated to preterm delivery in this relatively homogeneous group of low income high-risk women.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Collaborative needs assessment and systems development in Alabama: Process and products.

This article describes the implementation of a collaborative project and its results, involving a department of maternal and child health (DMCH) in a school of public health and a state department of public health. The state received a federal grant to enhance systems development for women and children. Adequate information regarding the existing system of health care was lacking. The state contracted with the DMCH for assistance in designing and conducting a needs assessment, whose purpose was to (1) identify strengths and weaknesses in the state system of care, (2) provide baseline information for targeting resources and measuring change, and (3) initiate an on-going process of assessment and evaluation of need. The DMCH collected data about financial and nonfinancial barriers to care from state-level health agency and organization experts, county-level service personnel, and consumers. The contributions to understanding the needs of the state offered by the information garnered in the three surveys helped the state in setting immediate and long-range objectives. The presence of the school of public health and the focus of its particular DMCH on assisting state agencies provided an atmosphere in which the state could ask for assistance and the university could respond in a way that was useful and relevant to the state's needs. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH): assessment, health planning, health priorities, interprofessional relations, program planning, public health.

Alabama↗