There hasn’t been much research on the benefits of fathers to the family unit. This literature shares (1) the benefits of an engaged father to the father, child, and mother (2) what fathers are saying and (3) shares national and Louisiana specific initiatives that support fathers.

The 2020 Early Childhood Risk and Reach report describes five categories of health challenges
facing Louisiana kids and families: Economic Stability; Healthcare Access & Quality; Social & Family Context; Education Access & Quality; and Neighborhood & Built Environment. The report also describes the reach of key publicly-funded programs that address these risks and challenges. Data on program reach are overlaid onto maps of overall risk, which helps to illustrate which parishes may require additional services and investments to support children’s health and well-being.

Highlights include:

• 73,228 children live in the 32 parishes that are classified as either Moderate-
  High or High Risk, representing approximately 23.8% of all children under age 5 in Louisiana.
• Louisiana has leveraged both state and federal funds to provide access to eight key programs and
  services for young children: Medicaid; WIC; EarlySteps; Maternal Infant and Early Childhood
  Home Visiting (MIECHV); Early Head Start; Head Start; high-quality, publicly funded child
  care for children ages 0-3, and high-quality, publicly funded pre-K for children age 4.
• Black children face more disadvantages on average than White children, which is a result of centuries of structural racism.

The 2021 Early Childhood Risk and Reach in Louisiana report is a tool designed to be used by all early childhood stakeholders, governmental and nongovernmental, to better inform policy and funding decisions that impact the distribution of critical resources.

Download the full report here.

Louisiana Birth Defects Monitoring Network (LBDMN) is responsible for the surveillance of birth defects in Louisiana’s children. This report fulfills the annual legislative reporting requirement and details data findings and performance measure assessments for our stakeholders.

Audience: Clinicians, data seekers, public health agencies/organizations, community partners, policymakers

The 2018 Louisiana Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review (LA-PAMR) report shares findings from the LA-PAMR Committee’s review of pregnancy-associated deaths occurring in 2018, including findings related to racial disparities, and recommendations for prevention. LA-PAMR works to quantify and understand pregnancy-associated deaths in order to create actionable, comprehensive recommendations to prevent future deaths.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE 2018 PAMR Report
Check out this video of Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell highlighting the main findings of the report. 

Pregnancy-associated deaths include:

• Pregnancy-related deaths: The death of a woman during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by the pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy (example cause of death: preeclampsia or eclampsia).
• Pregnancy-associated, but not related deaths: The death of a woman during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy from a cause that is not related to pregnancy (example cause of death: car crash).
• Pregnancy-associated, but unable to determine relatedness deaths: A pregnancy-associated death where the cause of death is unable to be determined as “pregnancy-related” or “pregnancy-associated, but not related” (example cause of death: suicide).