Researchers, health nurses and parents gain new knowledge about what improves mental health and a healthy weight development in infants.
The project is based on a close collaboration between health nurses from 16 Danish municipalities and researchers from the National Institute of Public Health. We have developed a method to detect vulnerabilities in the child’s development at the age of 9-10 months and enable health nurses to help the parents support their child’s development.
At the same time, research shows that parents of the most vulnerable infants need special efforts to avoid problems that limit the child’s development and well-being when he or she reaches school age.
Therefore, the purpose of Infant Health is to gain more knowledge about the best way to help the most vulnerable infants, and to do this through their parents.
In the coming years until 2025, health nurses from the municipalities of Albertslund, Allerød, Brøndby, Dragør, Egedal, Fredensborg, Gladsaxe, Glostrup, Herlev, Hillerød, Høje-Taastrup, Kalundborg, Køge, Roskilde, Rudersdal and Vejle will be included in the project. Parents of children aged 9-10 months from these municipalities will be invited to participate.
The project is based on the involvement of the parents as the most important providers of knowledge about their children’s development. Therefore, we will ask parents to answer electronic questionnaires. The first time will be when the child is 9-10 months old, and then again when the child is 18 months old and 24 months old.
Approximately 1,000 children and their parents are expected to be involved in the project.
We will partly investigate how the general healthcare services provided to vulnerable infants work, and partly how a new VIPP-PUF initiative works through comparing the effect of each. This is done by using a study design in which the time a given municipality will provide VIPP-PUF to vulnerable infants will be randomly selected. Until this time, the children and their parents will receive the usual care from the health nurses.
We use qualitative and quantitative studies to find out what works best. We examine the children’s development, well-being and growth, and the experiences of parents and health nurses.
Infant Health is the result of more than 20 years of close collaboration between the researchers of infants and health nurses, where research results have been continuously translated into the daily practice of the municipal healthcare system. In the same way, it will be possible to implement the results from Infant Health in the municipalities immediately after the project period and to disseminate them to all municipalities in Denmark.
Infant Health is supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
The research project is approved by the Research & Innovation Organisation (RIO) and the Research Ethics Committee (REC), at the University of Southern Denmark, and notified to www.clintrialsgov.