Bridging the Gap From Postpartum to Primary Care

Summary

Chronic health conditions affect most older adults. Preventative medicine and risk management strategies, especially when applied earlier in life, are essential to altering the trajectory of a disease and ultimately improving health outcomes. Primary care providers (PCP) often provide most of these services, though younger adults are the least likely to receive primary care. This project leverages a period of high engagement and health activation during an individual's life (pregnancy) to nudge her toward use of primary care after the pregnancy episode. This randomized controlled trial will test the hypothesis that a behavioral science-informed intervention, incorporating defaults and salience, can increase the rates of PCP follow-up within 4 months following a delivery for individual with hypertension, diabetes, obesity. If successful, this intervention could serve as a scalable solution to increase primary care use and preventative health services in a population that currently has low rates of engagement and utilization of these services.

Conditions

• Hypertension
• Hypertension in Pregnancy
• Diabetes Mellitus
• Gestational Diabetes
• Obesity
• Depressive Disorder
• Anxiety Disorders

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Default appointment scheduling

Default primary care appointment scheduling

BEHAVIORAL

Targeted messaging

Patient-specific messages about the importance of postpartum care transition

BEHAVIORAL

Nudge Reminders

Primary care appointment reminders

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Aging (NIA)

  collaborator NIH

• National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mark A Clapp, MD, MPH · Massachusetts General Hospital

• Jessica L Cohen, PhD · Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-11-03

Primary Completion

2023-10-11

Completion

2024-07-23

Countries

• United States

Study Locations