Frequently Asked Questions about PRAMS

1. How will PRAMS help improve the health of mothers and babies in North Carolina?
• PRAMS provides data not available from other sources about pregnancy and the first few months after birth. Along with that from birth certificates, this information can be used to plan and review state maternal and infant health programs.
• As an ongoing project, PRAMS provides the information necessary to monitor changes in maternal and child health indicators (e.g., unintended pregnancy, prenatal care, smoking, drinking, breastfeeding, infant health). These data are available to state health officials to use to improve the health of mothers and infants.
• The PRAMS sample is chosen from all women who had a live birth recently, so findings can be applied to the state's entire population of women who have recently delivered a live-born infant.
• PRAMS provides state-specific data that allows comparisons among participating states because the same data collection methods are used in all states.
2. How can PRAMS data be used?

The data from the North Carolina PRAMS project will be used to plan various types of programs across the state to support pregnant women and new mothers. For example, PRAMS data has been used with North Carolina's Back-To-Sleep Campaign, which aims to reduce SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) by teaching parents safer sleep positions for their babies.

In this case, PRAMS data showed which mothers had a tendency to put babies to sleep on their stomach. By sharing this data with the Back-to-Sleep Program, planners can use this data to better reach this group of women and lead to healthier infant sleep positions.

These data can also be used to:

• identify groups of women and infants at high risk for health problems
• monitor changes in health status
• measure progress towards goals in improving the health of mothers and infants

In addition, information is distributed to health departments, state legislators, professional societies and researchers.

3. Do other states have a PRAMS survey?

Currently, forty states and New York City participate in PRAMS, representing approximately 78% of all U.S. live births.

Alabama Alaska Arkansas Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Illinois Iowa

Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Nebraska New Hampshire

New Jersey New Mexico New York New York City North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island

South Carolina Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

For details on programs in other states, visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) PRAMS  website.

4. Are all of the PRAMS state projects the same?

In many ways, yes.

All state surveys contain a core group of questions that are asked in every state. These core questions are developed and evaluated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition to these questions, each state can add a small number of additional questions that are of particular interest to them.