Current Projects
Maternal and Child Health Branch, California Department of Health and Human Services
Maternal Child and Adolescent Health /Office of Family Planning Branch, California Department of Health and Human Services funds an ongoing cooperative agreement for building capacity in local MCAH programs for using data for community assessment, planning and policy development and evaluation. As of 2023, FHOP has worked with CDPH, MCAH for 31 years.
The focus of the current contract is to work with the MCAH programs in California's 61 local health jurisdictions (LHJs) on building capacity for performing community needs assessments, monitoring health, developing action plans, evaluating programs, and providing informational webinars on topics driven by LHJ needs. This includes acquiring data from birth and death certificates, and hospital discharge and emergency room data, and preparing EXCEL spreadsheets for MCAH indicators (FHOP Databooks). Spreadsheets contain raw data, rate tables and trend graphs. We have also used data compiled and collected from other sources including census population, California Health Interview Survey, the Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System, California Department of Social Services, Child Welfare Dynamic Report System, CDPH Genetic Disease Branch Newborn Screening Data, Sexually Transmitted disease occurrence data and number of calls for domestic violence data. In addition we provide training, technical assistance and maintain a website for all project materials with links to other sights useful to MCAH staff.
Archived webinars for State and Local MCAH can be found HERE.
Past Projects
Needs Assessments
Title V Needs Assessment of California Children's Services Program (CCS)
Title V Needs Assessments for Title V funded, state-run programs are conducted every five years, and FHOP has been contracted to conduct the CCS Needs Assessment for the past four cycles (over the course of 16 years).
The Family Health Outcomes Project is facilitated the 2018-2020 Needs Assessment Process on behalf of the California Department of Health Care Services, Integrated Systems of Care Division (DHCS-ISCD). The CCS program provides diagnostic and treatment services, medical case management, and physical and occupational therapy services to children under age 21 with CCS-eligible medical conditions. Examples of CCS-eligible conditions include, but are not limited to, chronic medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, cerebral palsy, heart disease, cancer, traumatic injuries, and infectious diseases producing major sequelae. CCS also provides medical therapy services that are delivered at public schools. The CCS needs assessment was a multifaceted project that involved convening a stakeholder group, collecting and analyzing both primary (key informant interviews, focus groups, and survey of CCS families, program administrators, and providers) and secondary data, and determining needs and priorities for program improvements over the next five years. The final CCS Needs Assessment Report and appendices can be found HERE.
Stanislaus County
This project involved FHOP working with the Stanislaus County Public Health Department to analyze survey data collected by Stanislaus County as part of a Community Health Assessment.
Children's Medical Services Branch, California Department of Health Care Services
The Family Health Outcomes Project was contracted by the California Children's Medical Services Branch to manage the design, implementation, and coordination of a large year-long needs assessment project for the California Department of Health Service's California Children's Service (CCS) program. The CCS program provides diagnostic and treatment services, medical case management, and physical and occupational therapy services to children under age 21 with CCS-eligible medical conditions. Examples of CCS-eligible conditions include, but are not limited to, chronic medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, cerebral palsy, heart disease, cancer, traumatic injuries, and infectious diseases producing major sequelae. CCS also provides medical therapy services that are delivered at public schools. The CCS needs assessment is required as part of state's Title V application, and was a multifaceted project that involved convening a stakeholder group, collecting and analyses of both primary and secondary data, deciding on CCS program priorities for 2010 - 2015, and developing an action plan to address the priorities.
Resources developed and used during the needs assessment process are available here.
The Final Report and Appendices are available on the DHCS CMS page. To access click here.
Children’s Medical Services Branch – California Department of Health and Human Services
FHOP was contracted in 2005 to work with the CA DHHS Children’s Medical Services Branch on its portion of the Federal Title V Needs Assessment. This involved consultation on the assessment process, convening a stakeholders group and facilitating one group meeting to select indicators and choose criteria for problem prioritization and another meeting to review the data and determine priority areas for the Needs Assessment report. In between the two meetings, FHOP staff collected and analyzed data on the indicators. Following the second stakeholders group meeting, FHOP prepared a report to discuss the final CMS priorities and process by which they were determined.
Program Evaluation
CalWORKs Home Visiting Program Evaluation
The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) awarded a $3 million contract to the UCSF Family Health Outcomes Project (FHOP) to evaluate the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Home Visiting Program (HVP). This voluntary program is supervised by CDSS and administered by participating California counties.
Established by AB-1811, the HVP is charged with providing high-quality, evidence-based, culturally competent home visiting services to pregnant women, parents or caretaker relatives, and children for 24 months or until the child’s second birthday, whichever is later. Home visiting services are to meet the needs of at-risk families in under-served, impoverished, rural, tribal, and other communities. The purpose of the HVP is to support positive outcomes for pregnant and parenting women, families, and infants born into poverty; expand their future educational, economic, and financial opportunities; and improve the likelihood they will exit poverty.
The UCSF Evaluation team is led by Principal Investigator Jennifer Rienks, PhD, Associate Director of FHOP. Co-Principal Investigator Linda Remy, MSW PhD, FHOP Research Director is responsible for the quantitative evaluation. Co-Principal Investigator Linda Franck, RN, PhD, from UCSF School of Nursing, Department of Family Health Care Nursing, is responsible for the qualitative evaluation together with sub-contractor Resource Development Associates of Oakland, CA. Co-Principal Investigator Geraldine Oliva, MD MPH, FHOP’s founder and Director, will work with Drs. Remy and Franck on a focused evaluation of HVP in relation to high-risk pregnancies and infants.
To learn more about the project and view the project report, click HERE.
Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services
The Center for Health Statistics/ Office of Health Information and Research funded an ongoing cooperative agreement for providing support and consultation on data methods, data quality and data standards.
The components of the project for the most year of this project were: evaluating the effectiveness of a training to improve the quality of birth certificate collected by hospital delivery room staff and recorded by local birth clerks; consulting on data methods for public health analysis; revising guidelines to standardize collection; coding and reporting of race and ethnicity data; and developing recommendations for improving the accuracy of geocoding of vital records data. This project involved working with CHS staff to evaluate effects of regional training for birth clerks on ways to improve the collection of data for birth certificates. FHOP consulted with CHS on assessing the quality of death data being processed by EDRS and elicited input from stakeholders on quality issues as they impact CHS reports. Another component of the project involved working with other CADPH Branches and Departments to develop data standards and data policies.
Prima Medical Foundation, California
This one-year research project involved helping the Prima Medial Foundation evaluate the impact of implementing a new model of labor and delivery at a local community hospital on job satisfaction, stress level, work-life balance, quality of care, attitudes toward C-sections, and knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of outcomes regarding the use of hospital-based obstetricians and certified nurse midwives teams to deliver the babies of both publicly insured and privately insured women. This information was used to help evaluate and improve the new program, and to help understand the positive and negative impact of such a program change on the medical community.
Seven Principles, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The "Seven Principles Project for African American Infant Survival and Community Unity" was a project funded through the CDC REACH 2010 initiative to end racial disparities in health. The San Francisco Department of Public Health was the prime contractor for this project, while the Family Health Outcomes Project (FHOP) serving in the capacity of project evaluator. The overall objective of this project was to improve perinatal outcomes through the use of a community-oriented set of strategies and interventions. These interventions were designed to involve the targeted population in improving the community in which they live. Further, the project aimed to build community capacity, increase social capital, and support community unity through the following strategies: 1) Promote leadership development, build community capacity, and promote community unity through the support of neighborhood Community Action Teams (CATS); 2) Increase community awareness of health disparities and risks through social marketing campaigns, 3) Build capacity in health and social service providers to recognize the impact of racism on health, and to develop culturally competent practices and systems by the use of Provider Trainings on, “Cultural Humility” and multi-day workshops on “Undoing Racism”; 4) Increase community connectedness through the support of community-based agencies to convene social events that provide opportunities for residents to come together in a safe environment to view a film that is relevant to issues affecting African Americans and to meet their neighbors, and (5) Develop a coalition of health and social service providers, community representatives and agencies, that builds capacity and promotes community health and wellness. Evaluation results supported the effectiveness of the marketing campaign, the provider training component, the “Undoing Racism” workshops, and the coalition development in meeting their goals.
Solano County - Coalition for Better Health Commnity Access Program
Funded project through the Solano County Coalition for Better Health "Solano Coalition for Better Health Community Access Program (CAP)." FHOP was the evaluator of the CAP Project Connect activities funded under this agreement. CAP Project Connect is an emergency room based outreach, assessment and brief counseling program that links people who are assessed to need a primary health care provider or substance abuse treatment with services.
Solano County - Multicultural Health Improvement Initiative
Funded project through the Solano County Coalition for Better Health "Multicultural Health Improvement Initiative (MCHII)" to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes and cancer rates. FHOP assisted the project staff in its community needs assessment and community intervention planning and is conducting the project evaluation. The MCHII project has developed and is coordinating interventions to reduce rates of diabetes and breast, prostate and colon cancers for African Americans in North Vallejo, California and rates of diabetes in Latinos in Dixon, California. The interventions include community outreach, a community awareness campaign, the development of community and social support networks for both prevention and control or illness, and provider education to promote screening for and co-management of disease. The evaluation included the development and analysis of a cross-sectional survey of community residents for longitudinal monitoring of community knowledge, attitudes and practices and assessment of the effectiveness of engaging health care providers in an effort to identify and utilize treatment protocol and involve clients in their care plan.
Research & Training
ASTHO Perinatal Opioid Use Trainings
In 2019-2021, FHOP had a contract th the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to facilitate trainings in 24 counties and 4 regions throughout California on screening perinatal women for opioid use. These trainings are targeted to Public Health staff, including staff from the California Home Visiting Program; Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the state’s Adolescent Family Life Program; the state’s Black Infant Health (BIH) program; the state’s Comprehensive Perinatal Services Program; and other stakeholders who work with women in the perinatal period. The California Opioid Use Disorder Toolkit: Supporting Public Health Response in Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health will be shared with all training participants. The toolkit was developed by ASTHO, with support from the CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and input from CDPH and FHOP.
California Office of Statewide Health Planning (OSHPD), Community Benefits Program
Cooperative agreement to develop the capacity of California's 200 non-profit hospitals to perform community assessments and develop plans to address identified problems. By law, California nonprofit hospitals are required to provide community service, some of which is charity care but some of which is intended to address population health issues. Every five years each hospital must develop a community assessment and plan as well as report their community service. FHOP conducted focus groups with hospital representatives to identify areas in which they have assessment or planning problems and training needs, conducted fact-to-face trainings in community needs priority setting and problem analysis, and developed community assessment and action plan chapters to be included in OSHPD's Implementation of California's Hospital Community Benefits Law-A Planners Guide
University-wide AIDS Research Program
Funded collaborative grant between FHOP and the California Prostitute's Education Project "Reducing HIV in African Americans: A Comprehensive Approach." FHOP was evaluating the effectiveness of two different strategies to reduce rates of HIV transmission: standard HIV testing and counseling vs. a bio-psycho-behavioral (BPB) intervention. The bio-psycho-behavioral intervention (BPB) included STD screening, education, and treatment, HIV counseling and testing, personalized counseling which focuses on the individual's risk behaviors and motivations to change these behaviors, and a safer sex/harm reduction workshop. The participants in this intervention group received these services during the baseline visit and again on the one-year follow-up visit. The comparison group was given only HIV testing and counseling at baseline and received the comprehensive BPB intervention.
WT Grant Foundation
Funded project to produce a report on the status of Adolescent Health Indicators and to make recommendations for a new framework and new indicators. The WT Grant Foundation project involved reviewing major national indicator reports and data collection instruments to identify domains and indicators and relevant questions and evaluation their relevance and utility. It also involved reviewing the literature on factors that impact adolescent health and well-being and determining their use as indicators for the future.
California Policy Research Center Project
"Impact of Changing Hospital Characteristics on Children's Hospital Outcomes - 1983 to 2000." In this project, FHOP investigated the impact of hospital structural characteristics such as the presence of a licensed pediatric unit, hospital staffing patterns, availability of 24 hour ER care on in-hospital complication rates, length of stay and disposition.
Consulting
Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI), Community Engagement Program
This was a five-year NIH grant to UCSF to improve the translation of clinical and other health information to health providers and communities to improve the effectiveness of clinical treatment and other health interventions through promoting the diffusion of evidence-based treatments and practices.
FHOP's director, Dr. Geraldine Oliva, was part of the training and consulting groups for the Community Engagement portion of CTSI. This included providing training and consultation to UCSF faculty who want to develop community-based participatory research projects as well as to community-based agencies wishing to evaluate the effectiveness of their programs or develop research partnerships with the university. The focus of the most recent year's activity was to participate in a supplemental NIH grant to develop a working partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to conduct joint research and evaluation projects involving the collaboration of the two institutions with other community agencies.
March of Dimes
This was a 2-year contract to provide consultation on the Center for Health Statistics Birth Certificate revision process. It involved reviewing worksheets for Birth Clerks, consulting on training for Birth Clerks, and acting as a liaison with stakeholder groups.
Stanislaus County
This was a one year contract to provide consultation for the county Epidemiologist on a project to analyze the local birth/death cohort file and produce a report on Perinatal Periods of Risk, do an in-depth analysis of birth data to identify risk factors and patterns that may assist in developing interventions and providing a literature review on potential causal factors and evidence–based interventions.