EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 3 P.M. EST October 13, 1998
Contact: Sarah Ellis, (303) 315-5571, [email protected]

Nurse Home Visits Reduce Antisocial Behavior in At-risk Adolescents

Prenatal and early childhood home visits by nurses reduced antisocial behavior and drug experimentation in adolescence among children born into high-risk families, according to a study published by a University of Colorado Health Sciences Center researcher.

David Olds, PhD, professor of pediatrics and director of the Kempe Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health, and colleagues at Cornell University, the University of Denver and the University of Rochester conducted a follow-up study of 315 adolescents at age 15 to evaluate the long-term effects of prenatal and early-childhood home visitation by nurses. The results will appear with an accompanying editorial in tomorrow's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

At the time of the study, which was conducted in Elmira, N.Y., and replicated in Memphis, Tenn., and in Denver, many of the children's mothers were unmarried, younger than 19 and/or of low socioeconomic status.

Study results indicate that the adolescents who had been born to nurse-visited, unmarried women with low income reported fewer instances of running away from home, arrests and convictions and violations of probation than did children of other high-risk families who received prenatal and well-child care in a clinic.

Children of families who had home visits also had fewer sexual partners and smoked and drank less. Their parents reported fewer behavioral problems with the children related to their use of drugs and alcohol. There were no program effects on less serious forms of antisocial behavior, initiation of sexual intercourse or use of illegal drugs.

"We know that well-designed nurse home visitation programs benefit vulnerable families in many ways and over long periods of time," Dr. Olds said. "It has worked to lower incidences of child abuse and neglect, welfare dependence and involvement in the criminal justice system among the mothers, and now we know that it can reduce serious antisocial behaviors among the children as well."

Juvenile crime is a significant problem in the United States, the authors reported. In 1996, law enforcement agencies made 2.9 million arrests of juveniles (children under age 18) and juveniles accounted for 19 percent of all arrests and 19 percent of all violent crime arrests. Childhood onset antisocial behavior is associated with neuropsychological deficits, such as impaired language or intellectual functioning, and harsh, rejecting parenting early in the child's life.

The home visitation program reduces these risks by helping the mothers with nutrition and health during pregnancy, reducing smoking and other drug use, life planning skills, parenting, nurturing child health and development, and dealing with other environmental and social challenges.

The U.S. Department of Justice has provided funding for the Kempe Prevention Research Center to assist six high-crime communities around the country in establishing the program as a long-term investment in family health and crime prevention. An increasing number of other communities also are developing the program.

The nurse home visitation program, based at the CU-Health Sciences Center, was selected last year as one of the wold's 100 crime prevention best practices by the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime; and by the Center for the Study of Prevention of Violence as one of the 10 most effective violence prevention programs in the United States.

The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center is one of four campuses in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver, Colo., the campus includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and two hospitals.

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