Health Assessments

Health Assessments 

Head Start centers and similar partners likely require parents to complete various documents, including health assessments, before children can be enrolled in their programs. Ensuring those forms include a few tobacco related questions is an important step in assessing the impact of Breathe over time. Head Start centers must follow minimal federal reporting requirements, but currently there is no requirement regarding tobacco, nicotine delivery devices, or secondhand smoke exposure.

Steps for adding questions to Health Assessment forms

1. Develop a relationship with the Head Start leadership and conduct the Breathe training with their staff before moving forward with adding questions to their Health Assessments.
2. Ask to see a sample of their current enrollment paperwork, including the health assessment forms. Each center or organization may have a different name for this kind of paperwork or it may even be completed online. Simply let them know you are interested in understanding the kind of questions they already ask parents and the summary data that is collected to determine how it might be helpful in evaluating our efforts with Breathe.
3. Review the current Health Assessment forms for questions related to tobacco use, secondhand exposure in the home or car, and health issues such as asthma or other chronic respiratory illnesses. Commend them for any tobacco related questions they may already include.
4. If similar questions are not already included, make a recommendation to the Head Start leadership to include as many of the following questions as possible:
   1. Do you smoke, chew tobacco, or use e-cigarettes/vape?                                                                                                       YES   or   NO
      1. If yes, are you interested in resources to help you quit?                                                                                              YES   or   NO
   2. Is your child exposed to tobacco smoke and/or e-cigarette vapor in the home or car?                                                  YES   or   NO
   3. Has your child been diagnosed with asthma or other chronic respiratory illness?                                                          YES   or   NO
5. Offer ongoing assistance, as appropriate, to assist in making these changes to the center’s Health Assessments. Keep in mind that this will take some time to get approval and be implemented so begin the discussions several months before the start of a new school year. Serving on the center’s Health Advisory Council could be a good way to give back as well as assist in the process of updating these forms.
6. Work with the Head Start leadership to get access to summary data (unidentifiable) that includes the tobacco related questions and basic demographic information. This could be a separate report or it could be the overall report they generate with all the data collected on their families.
7. Make a plan with the Head Start leadership for how follow up will happen for those parents who are interested in resources to quit. Possible options include handling it internally by home visitors who have been trained on Breathe, making referrals to the Quitline, or referring those parents to the local tobacco coordinator.
8. Share the data collected with TPC and use it to inform your work with that Head Start center moving forward and to make recommendations for modifying Breathe.