Reduce African-American Infant Mortality (SIDS)

June 30, 2017 updated by: Rachel Moon, MD, University of Virginia

Randomized Messaging Trial to Reduce African-American Infant Mortality

The overall purpose of this randomized trial is to develop and evaluate a systematic approach to improve African-American parental behaviors specifically with regards to the infant sleep environment. African-American parents of newborn, healthy term infants will be randomized to receive either a standard message to avoid bedsharing, eliminate use of soft bedding and soft sleep surfaces, and to place infants in the supine position for sleep to reduce the risk of SIDS or an enhanced message to avoid these behaviors to both reduce the risk of SIDS and to prevent infant suffocation.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

A persistent, significant racial disparity exists in infant mortality rates attributable to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and other types of sleep-related sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), such as suffocation and undetermined causes of death. SIDS and other sleep-related deaths account for ~4600 U.S. deaths annually.4 While the incidence of SIDS has declined, infant deaths from accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed have quadrupled.5 Additionally, racial disparities in SIDS and other sleep-related deaths have increased over the past decade, with African-American infants twice as likely to die as other infants.6, 7 Certain infant sleeping practices, such as prone (stomach) sleeping, use of soft bedding and soft sleep surfaces, and bedsharing, likely play a significant role, both in SIDS and SUID, and in the disparities seen therein. Elimination of health barriers and racial/ethnic disparities, and promoting healthy development, have been highlighted as MCHB research priorities; this application is directly responsive to both of these priorities.

In the current system, health care providers and public health messages, using the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations,8 stress the use of supine (back) positioning, avoidance of soft bedding, and room sharing without bedsharing as recommendations to reduce the risk of SIDS. However, our research suggests that African-Americans have problems with this message, as they have a low degree of self-efficacy with regards to SIDS risk reduction (i.e., they do not believe that their actions can make a difference in whether SIDS occurs) and are suspicious of the concept of "risk reduction."2 However, African-American parents have a high degree of self-efficacy with regards to preventing infant suffocation. Given the increasing number of suffocation and other preventable sleep-related deaths and the fact that many of the behavioral risk factors for both SIDS and preventable sleep-related deaths are the same, providing parents with an additional safe sleep message that emphasizes prevention of suffocation may be more effective in changing parent behavior. Such a message would be carefully crafted based on our current community-based research1-3 to address emerging risks of greatest concern and potential self-efficacy. A simple, easily reproducible change in the system of newborn care could thus address a critical barrier to further progress in reducing infant mortality rates, particularly among African American families. The best systems of care to reduce disparities must use the best available and culturally competent messaging based on strong empirical evidence and require rigorous evaluation.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1200

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • District of Columbia
      • Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, United States, 20010
        • Washington Hospital Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • The purpose of the study is to determine the impact of a new educational strategy on African American parents, all participants will be self identified as African American. Although male parents will be allowed to participate in the followup surveys, female parents will be the primary focus of this study.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Mothers under the age of 18 years will not be included in the study. Infants born with congenital anomalies that would prevent them from sleeping in the supine position or if the infant is born at less than 36 weeks gestation, requires hospitalization for more than 1 week, or has ongoing medical problems.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: Reduce infant mortality
The overall purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a systematic approach to improve African-American parental behaviors specifically with regards to the infant sleep environment
Behavioral: Reduce Infant Mortality
The study's long term goal is to disseminate a new easily implemented and reproducible intervention that based on our previous research is culturally competent and provides a rationale for changing infant sleep position and sleep environment. This intervention if successful will quickly be disseminated and will be an important change to the system of newborn care; the resultant change in parental behavior would ultimately result in a reduction in sleep-related infant mortality rates thereby promoting healthy development.After written consent has been obtained, a brief survey about knowledge of and attitudes toward safe sleep position recommendations, current intent with regards to safe sleep recommendations, and demographics will be completed. Contact information will be obtained from participants to facilitate study follow-up at two weeks of infants birth 2-3 months and 5-6 months.
Other Names:
  • African Americans
  • Anticipatory guidance
  • Health Promotion
  • Infant Mortality
  • Injury Prevention
  • Nurses
  • Parent Education
  • Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Suffocation, Strangulation and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Time Frame: Three years
Sleep Position (Supine vs. Nonsupine) Bedsharing (Yes vs. No) Use of Softbedding (Yes vs. No)
Three years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Virginia

Collaborators

Children's National Research Institute
Medstar Health Research Institute

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Rachel Y Moon, MD, University of Virginia

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

June 1, 2011

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 12, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 26, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

May 27, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 5, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 30, 2017

Last Verified

June 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2011-095

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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