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Preconception health in England: a proposal for annual reporting with core metrics

Preconception health in England: a proposal for annual reporting with core metrics
Preconception health in England: a proposal for annual reporting with core metrics
There is growing interest in preconception health as a crucial period for influencing not only pregnancy outcomes, but also future maternal and child health, and prevention of long-term medical conditions. Successive national and international policy documents emphasise the need to improve preconception health, but resources and action have not followed through with these goals. We argue for a dual intervention strategy at both the public health level (eg, by improving the food environment) and at the individual level (eg, by better identification of those planning a pregnancy who would benefit from support to optimise health before conception) in order to raise awareness of preconception health and to normalise the notion of planning and preparing for pregnancy. Existing strategies that target common risks factors, such as obesity and smoking, should recognise the preconception period as one that offers special opportunity for intervention, based on evidence from life-course epidemiology, developmental (embryo) programming around the time of conception, and maternal motivation. To describe and monitor preconception health in England, we propose an annual report card using metrics from multiple routine data sources. Such a report card should serve to hold governments and other relevant agencies to account for delivering interventions to improve preconception health.
0140-6736
2262-2271
Hanson, Mark
1952fad1-abc7-4284-a0bc-a7eb31f70a3f
Vogel, Christina
768f1dcd-2697-4aae-95cc-ee2f6d63dff5
Woods-Townsend, Kathryn
af927fa3-30b6-47d9-8b4d-4d254b3a7aab
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Barker, Mary
374310ad-d308-44af-b6da-515bf5d2d6d2
Preconception Partnership
Hanson, Mark
1952fad1-abc7-4284-a0bc-a7eb31f70a3f
Vogel, Christina
768f1dcd-2697-4aae-95cc-ee2f6d63dff5
Woods-Townsend, Kathryn
af927fa3-30b6-47d9-8b4d-4d254b3a7aab
Godfrey, Keith
0931701e-fe2c-44b5-8f0d-ec5c7477a6fd
Barker, Mary
374310ad-d308-44af-b6da-515bf5d2d6d2

Preconception Partnership (2019) Preconception health in England: a proposal for annual reporting with core metrics. The Lancet, 393 (10187), 2262-2271, [D-18-07634R1]. (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30954-7).

Record type: Article

Abstract

There is growing interest in preconception health as a crucial period for influencing not only pregnancy outcomes, but also future maternal and child health, and prevention of long-term medical conditions. Successive national and international policy documents emphasise the need to improve preconception health, but resources and action have not followed through with these goals. We argue for a dual intervention strategy at both the public health level (eg, by improving the food environment) and at the individual level (eg, by better identification of those planning a pregnancy who would benefit from support to optimise health before conception) in order to raise awareness of preconception health and to normalise the notion of planning and preparing for pregnancy. Existing strategies that target common risks factors, such as obesity and smoking, should recognise the preconception period as one that offers special opportunity for intervention, based on evidence from life-course epidemiology, developmental (embryo) programming around the time of conception, and maternal motivation. To describe and monitor preconception health in England, we propose an annual report card using metrics from multiple routine data sources. Such a report card should serve to hold governments and other relevant agencies to account for delivering interventions to improve preconception health.

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Final_Introducing_Annual_Report_Card_on_preconception_health - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 8 April 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 May 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 430904
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/430904
ISSN: 0140-6736
PURE UUID: 82880436-17d7-4c6b-9e21-236127d7d58a
ORCID for Mark Hanson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6907-613X
ORCID for Christina Vogel: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3897-3786
ORCID for Kathryn Woods-Townsend: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3376-6988
ORCID for Keith Godfrey: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4643-0618
ORCID for Mary Barker: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2976-0217

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Date deposited: 17 May 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 07:51

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Contributors

Author: Mark Hanson ORCID iD
Author: Christina Vogel ORCID iD
Author: Keith Godfrey ORCID iD
Author: Mary Barker ORCID iD
Corporate Author: Preconception Partnership

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