Based on the national Healthy Families America (HFA) model, Healthy Families New York (HFNY) is a community-based prevention program that seeks to improve the health and well-being of children at risk for abuse and neglect by providing intensive home visitation services. The target population consists of expectant parents and parents with an infant less than three months of age who are considered to be at high risk for child abuse and neglect. Specially trained paraprofessionals are assigned to the participating families to deliver home visitation services until the child reaches five or is enrolled in Head Start or kindergarten.

The goals of HFNY are to promote positive parent-child interaction; to ensure optimal pre-natal care; to promote healthy childhood growth and development; and to enhance family functioning.

Mothers participating in the HFNY study were significantly less likely to deliver low-birth-weight babies than mothers in the control group (3.3% vs 8.3%). HFNY parents also reported having engaged in significantly fewer acts of serious abuse and neglect.

The HFNY study found overall positive program effects in terms of childbirth outcomes. HFNY mothers experienced better childbirth outcomes than control mothers. Specifically, among those in the sample who were randomized at least 2 months before the birth of their children, control group mothers were significantly more likely than HFNY group mothers to deliver low-birth-weight babies. The mean rate of low birth weight was 2½ times as high for the control group (8.3 percent) as for the HFNY group (3.3 percent).

HFNY parents reported having engaged in significantly fewer acts of serious abuse and neglect (0.20 compared with 0.48). In addition, HFNY parents had a significantly lower prevalence of self-reported neglect (5.4 percent compared with 8.5 percent), but the frequency of self-reported neglect did not differ significantly between the two groups. HFNY parents engaged in significantly fewer self-reported acts of severe/very severe physical abuse (0.06 compared with 0.42). HFNY parents engaged in fewer acts of minor physical aggression (2.34 compared with 3.27) and in fewer acts of psychological aggression (3.21 compared with 4.92).