Clinical trial NCT00705328: Families First Edmonton (FFE)
Official title: Families First Edmonton: The Comparative Effects and Expense of Four Models of Augmenting Services for Low-income Families
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: PHASE2
Conditions: Low-Income Population
Keywords: low-income families
children
recreation
family healthy lifestyle
linkages to community resources
Families with low incomes
working poor
welfare recipients
Lead sponsor: University of Alberta
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2008-06-26
Enrollment: 2400
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: This study is designed to provide clear evidence for health and social policymakers about the influence of alternate service-delivery models and practices on enhancing and sustaining low-income family linkages to available services. A challenge faced by Canadian health and social service providers is to promote health for low-income families in a proactive and cost-effective manner. Families with low incomes experience an array of health and social barriers that compromise their resilience, lead to negative family outcomes, and act as barriers to available services. Family barriers are compounded by service delivery barriers and result in reduced opportunities for effective, primary-level services and in increased use of secondary-level services (e.g., emergency room visits, emergency intervention, police involvement), with the obvious increase in costs. Randomized-controlled trials are rare in community-based intervention research.

This Families First Edmonton randomized-controlled trial (RCT) will enable testing of innovative service-delivery models and provide an opportunity for evidence-based decision making for Canadian policy makers. Critical information will be provided about

1. optimizing cost effectiveness for public systems
2. the long-term effects on the health of low-income family members
3. mechanisms that intervene between the interventions and their effect on the health of low-income family members
4. building on previous research and on community-based initiatives
5. promoting knowledge transfer


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Participant families will

  1. have received low-income assistance either in the form of

     1. Alberta Works Income Support
     2. Alberta Child Health Benefits,
     3. Alberta Works Adult Health Benefits
     4. participating in City of Edmonton Leisure Access Program
     5. living in Capital Region Housing
  2. have a child or children between 0 and 12 years of age
  3. reside in city of Edmonton
  4. be able to provide signed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

* Potential study participants will be excluded if they refuse to give informed consent to be interviewed
* are unable to read and write English and an appropriate translator is not available
* have plans to move outside the region
* are unwilling to participate for the entire follow-up period

Primary outcomes:
measure: Increased linkages between low income families and established services in their communities
timeFrame: Baseline, 12-month, 24-month, 36-month follow-up
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Edmonton
country: Canada
facility: Alberta Human Resources and Employment
state: Alberta
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Alberta
name: Jane Drummond, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Browne G, Byrne C, Roberts J, Gafni A, Whittaker S. When the bough breaks: provider-initiated comprehensive care is more effective and less expensive for sole-support parents on social assistance. Soc Sci Med. 2001 Dec;53(12):1697-710. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00455-x.
citation: Drummond J, Wiebe N, So S, Schnirner L, Bisanz J, Williamson DL, Mayan M, Templeton L, Fassbender K; Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families. Service-integration approaches for families with low income: a Families First Edmonton, community-based, randomized, controlled trial. Trials. 2016 Jul 22;17:343. doi: 10.1186/s13063-016-1444-8.
citation: Drummond J, Schnirer L, So S, Mayan M, Williamson DL, Bisanz J, Fassbender K, Wiebe N. The protocol for the Families First Edmonton trial (FFE): a randomized community-based trial to compare four service integration approaches for families with low-income. BMC Health Serv Res. 2014 May 19;14:223. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-223.