Public health system partnerships and the scope of maternal and child services: a longitudinal study

Local health departments (LHDs) struggle to serve their communities in the face of ongoing fiscal constraints. Fiscal constraints have led to the elimination and reduction of maternal and child health services (MCH). LHDs have used various strategies to minimize the negative impact fiscal constraints of elimination or reduction of services provided to their communities. Many LHDs have used strategies such as developing partnerships. While these strategies are assumed to increase the delivery of services and improve outcomes, there is limited research on the type of partnerships needed to service delivery. Our interest was identifying the type of partnerships associated with an increase in MCH service delivery. We found that our method for identifying partnership types was effective, and that partnerships types are associated with the delivery of maternal and child services. The next step in our work is to conduct in-depth analysis with LHDs to understand the partnership characteristics and MCH services and practices they use to increase service delivery and achieve exceptional health outcomes