Pediatricians’ Group Given $1.5 Million for 2 Studies

A Ventura County group of pediatricians has received $1.5 million in grants for two studies to reduce the county’s number of infant deaths and cases of child abuse.

Pediatric Diagnostic Center Associates in Ventura announced Thursday that it will oversee the two studies, which aim to show that early intervention is the best method of preventing child abuse and reducing infant mortality.

The program, set to begin in February, will send nurses and other health-care workers into the home to inform expectant mothers about prenatal health care and teach parents--who may be predisposed to drug and alcohol abuse or family violence--about controlling their anger and stress.

Paul Russell, a Ventura County pediatrician who is heading the project, said many Ventura County children slip through the cracks, becoming part of a cycle of violence that ends up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The costs of not preventing a case of child abuse are astronomical,” Russell said.

Ventura County’s Child Protective Services receives more than 6,000 referrals each year, Russell said.

Citing County Public Health Department statistics, Russell said the Port Hueneme-Oxnard area has the county’s highest infant death rate, 9.9 deaths per thousand children under 1 year of age. That is almost double the county average of 5.1 deaths per thousand, Russell said.

“Many of the children who have trouble in the school system come from chaotic home environments,” Russell said. “If you look at the kids who are in gangs, you’ll see that over 90% of them have come from chaotic or abusive families.”

At a news conference Thursday, Russell detailed the costs to public agencies of a typical family tainted by drug abuse and domestic violence. In some cases, he said, the combined bill to taxpayers could add up to more than $450,000 for someone abused as a child, beginning with foster care in early life, special education classes in school, group home fees as a troubled teen and imprisonment as an adult.

“And then the cycle starts over again,” Russell said. “He gets out of jail, starts a family and then he begins abusing his family.”

The prevention programs will involve 300 Ventura County families who volunteer to take part in the study. Some families will be referred by community clinics and others will be selected immediately after the mother gives birth at Ventura County Medical Center.

At the end of the five-year period, the families who have participated in the program will be compared with 300 families who didn’t receive attention from the program.

Kathleen Chamberlin, a public health nurse who will head up a four-member team that will make periodic visits to targeted family homes, said the project’s limitations need to be recognized.

“We have to look at it as a research model,” Chamberlin said. “When the results come out, our hope is that fund raising (for child abuse prevention) will be increased.”

Russell agreed that the project had a narrow scope and could not dispatch health officials to assist every family.

“I wish we had the resources to do every single one,” Russell said. “It’s a demonstration project that will hopefully show the effectiveness of early prevention.”

He recalled a recent instance where a 1-year-old girl who had suffered a seizure was taken to him. Russell said he discovered that her tiny body also suffered from a broken leg, several previous fractures that had healed and a blood clot in her brain.

Despite the mother’s insistence that the injuries came from a crib accident, Russell suspected child abuse and asked to examine the toddler’s twin brother. Finding similar fractures, the pediatrician reported the incident and the children were separated from a suspected abusive father.

“If we had been able to provide in-home support to the family and assisted them on how to manage their anger without resorting to violence this could have been prevented,” Russell said.

The grant money, he said, will enable a variety of local agencies to join the study determining the effectiveness of early prevention programs.

The Oxnard-based Healthy Families Ventura and the Advocates for Children Project in Ventura were selected by the Pediatric Diagnostic Center Associates to help conduct the study. Other local agencies also plan to get involved.

In dividing up the grant money, the Pediatric Diagnostic Center Associates has funneled $975,000 to Healthy Families Ventura to conduct a four-year intervention program that starts before birth. Russell said the program will teach parenting skills in an effort to reduce infant mortality, child abuse and neglect. The federal grant came from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

Advocates for Children received $250,000 from the same federal agency and $275,000 from a San Francisco child-abuse prevention foundation to conduct a five-year program involving postnatal, in-home visits by public health nurses for selected families at risk of drug abuse and child neglect.