Project Summary:

Kansas Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is a collaborative project with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to establish a state-specific, population-based, epidemiological surveillance system of selected maternal attitudes, behaviors and experiences for the State of Kansas. There are two major goals of the Kansas PRAMS project to reduce infant mortality and low birth weight. Kansas will obtain data to understand the risk factors that contribute to poor pregnancy outcomes and understand the experiences and behaviors before, during, and after pregnancy that result in high risk births. Each month, a sample of women who have had a recent live birth, is randomly drawn from the birth certificate file. Mothers from this sample are mailed a questionnaire covering a number of questions related to prenatal and postnatal behaviors and experiences. Questionnaires may be sent up to three times depending on response. If there is no response, mothers may be contacted and interviewed by telephone. Responses are then aggregated to provide a picture of the behavior of expectant mothers for policy and program planning.

Overall Goal/Specific Aim:

The overall goal of Kansas PRAMS is to reduce infant morbidity and mortality and to promote maternal health by influencing maternal and child health programs, policies, and maternal behaviors during pregnancy and early infancy. The information from Kansas PRAMS may lead to improvement in the health of mothers and infants in Kansas.

Kansas 2020 PRAMS Surveillance Report