Literacy Promotion for Latinos Study

Rutgers The State University of New Jersey

Status: Completed

Conditions: Behavior, Child; Parenting; Literacy; Language Development

Treatments: Behavioral: Text messages; Behavioral: Connection to community resources; Behavioral: Usual care including ROR

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04609553

1R01HD099125-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Pro2019002784

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study tests the extent to which tailored outreach text messages that provide a cue to action and an intervention that enhances access to poverty-reducing resources, in combination with standard primary care literacy promotion, can improve child language and social- emotional skill acquisition among low-income Latino children.

Full description

The investigators propose a 3 arm randomized clinical trial to test strategies designed to enhance literacy promotion for low-income Latino families. The investigators will recruit 630 parent-child dyads from community health centers that serve low-income, Latino families. Parents will be randomly assigned to one of 3 arms (1) Reach Out and Read (ROR) an evidence-based literacy promotion intervention that is widely disseminated in primary care; (2) ROR plus tailored outreach text messages; (3) ROR plus tailored outreach text messages and enhanced access to poverty-reducing resources using a widely disseminated model that simplifies access and provides care coordination. In Aim 1, the investigators will test their hypotheses that (1) children in the ROR plus text message arm will have higher scores on validated assessments of language and social-emotional development compared to standard ROR alone and (2) children who receive both text messages and enhanced access to poverty-reducing resources will have higher scores compared to the other two arms. In Aim 2, the investigators will examine mechanisms that underlie the effects of the interventions. In Aim 3, the investigators will use mixed methods to conduct a process evaluation to understand how the interventions are implemented, identify barriers, facilitators, and modifications, and explore parents' experiences with the interventions.

Enrollment: 662 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Primary caregiver of a child age 6 months to 12 months
• Identifies as Latino/a/x
• Primary language English or Spanish
• Cell phone ownership
• Age 18 years or older
• Willing to receive text messages
• Willing to accept being placed into one of three study groups

Exclusion criteria

• Children with multiple congenital anomalies or genetic disorders and previously identified developmental delays
• Individuals unable to provide informed consent
• Intent to discontinue care at current pediatric clinic / recruitment site
• Discontinued care at one of the three pediatric clinics / recruitment sites

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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662 participants in 3 patient groups

Usual care including ROR

Active Comparator group

Description:

Literacy promotion is a pediatric standard of care. Participants in this group will receive usual care that includes ROR, a primary care literacy promotion intervention.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Usual care including ROR

ROR plus text messages

Experimental group

Description:

In addition to ROR, participants will receive three text messages per week, plus one interactive follow-up message per month, for the study period with scheduled breaks.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Usual care including ROR

Behavioral: Text messages

ROR plus text messages plus connection to community resources

Experimental group

Description:

In addition to ROR and text messages, participants will be referred to a county-based single point of entry system for referrals to community resources. This system simplifies access to poverty-reducing resources by creating a centralized access point, maintaining an updated data base of resources with existing capacity to support families, and providing case management.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Usual care including ROR

Behavioral: Connection to community resources

Behavioral: Text messages