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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Increase the proportion of pregnant women who receive early and adequate prenatal care — MICH‑08 Data Methodology and Measurement

On this page:  About the National Data  |  Methodology  |  History  |  References

About the National Data

Data

Data Source:  National Vital Statistics System - Natality (NVSS-N), CDC/NCHS

Baseline: 76.4 percent of pregnant females received early and adequate prenatal care in 2018

Target: 80.5 percent

Numerator
Number of births to females receiving adequate prenatal care by the Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index (APNCU).
Denominator
Number of live births.
Target-setting method
Percentage point improvement
Target-setting method details
Percentage point improvement from the baseline using Cohen's h effect size of 0.10.
1
Target-setting method justification
Trend data were not available at the time of establishing the baseline and target for this objective. A percentage point improvement was calculated using Cohen's h effect size of 0.1. This method was used because there was a lack of data available on recent trends.

Methodology

Methodology notes

The Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index (APNCU) is a measure of prenatal care utilization that combines the month of pregnancy prenatal care began with the number of prenatal visits. Rates can be classified as "intensive use," "adequate," "intermediate," or "less than adequate." For this measure, adequate prenatal care is defined as a score of either "adequate" or "intensive use."

A discussion of the APNCU has been published.

History

Comparable HP2020 objective
Retained, which includes core objectives that are continuing from Healthy People 2020 with no change in measurement.

References

Additional resources about the objective

  • Kotelchuck M. An evaluation of the Kessner Adequacy of Prenatal Care Index and a proposed Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilization Index. Am J Public Health. 1994 Sep;84(9):1414-20. doi: 10.2105/ajph.84.9.1414. PMID: 8092364; PMCID: PMC1615177.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8092364/

1. Effect size h=0.1 was chosen to correspond with 10% improvement from a baseline of 50%.