Elevating Public Health Monitoring for Fathers

Fathers play an important role in the health of mothers and infants. Mirrored after the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), PRAMS for Dads, led by the Family & Child Health Innovations Program in the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, uses validated survey methodology and tools to:

• Give voice to fatherhood experiences through validated, representative public health data collection
• Fill gaps in knowledge concerning the lived experiences and needs of fathers
• Support communities and organizations working directly with fathers with reliable data
• Focus on paternal health, attitudes, behaviors and influences and their impacts on maternal and child health during the perinatal period 

In 2018, PRAMS for Dads was piloted in Georgia with Lurie Children’s using an Innovation Grant from the CDC. As of January 2026, eight states and Japan have implemented a PRAMS for Dads survey, each with unique innovations tailored to their population. So far, over 9,000 fathers have responded to this population-representative survey. Below are survey cover examples and innovations occurring with eight new roll outs.

 

State	Innovations	Start of Fielding
Georgia	Earlier contact for survey completion (3-4 weeks post birth)	Oct. 2018, Sept. 2023
Massachusetts	Development of a gender neutral survey	Oct. 2023
Michigan (Kent County and Detroit)	Oversampling of Black and Hispanic fathers	May 2023
North Dakota	Oversampling of American Indian and Alaska Native fathers	July 2023
Ohio	Multi-agency coalition drives survey development	March 2022
Maine	Streamlined mailing schedule and push-to-web phone phase	July 2025
Wisconsin	Includes in-depth questions on mental health service access	Sept. 2025
Japan	Internet panel-based pilot including fathers and mothers	Dec. 2025

 

What We’ve Learned So Far

Mirroring maternal PRAMS, PRAMS for Dads uses the same method for sampling fathers and collecting information about men’s health and experiences during the perinatal period. Sampling mother-father pairs means that linkages can be made between paternal factors and pregnancy, maternal, and infant outcomes. Examples of actionable health data from the 2018-2019 PRAMS for Dads pilot in Georgia include:

• 70% of fathers were overweight or had obesity
• 19% reported smoking cigarettes on an average day
• 13% reported binge drinking in the past 30 days
• 10% reported depressive symptoms since infant’s birth
• 45% reported not currently having a primary care provider

Publications using the PRAMS for Dads pilot data include those on the importance of including fathers in maternal and child health and mental health as a family experience. An analysis of father’s influence on safe sleep and breastfeeding found racial and ethnic differences in infant safe sleep practices, low rates of fathers using safe sleep practices, and longer breastfeeding rates when fathers support breastfeeding. To elevate the importance of fathers in public health data collection, our team has published an op-ed in The Hill, been featured on NPR, and participated in the 2024 Congressional Dads Caucus Roundtable. Published work in 2025 focuses on social determinants of paternal health, predictors of paternity leave uptake, and associations between paternity leave and breastfeeding success. Continued collection of information about the health of fathers directly from fathers in the postnatal period can eliminate barriers and systemic impediments to fathers and families thriving in this generation and future generations.

Implications

The transition to fatherhood — when men move from partner to parent — is a powerful lever for change for fathers. Meeting this motivation with public health monitoring and infrastructure can improve early childhood and family health outcomes. Collecting information directly from fathers in the perinatal period can eliminate barriers and highlight opportunities to help fathers and families thrive across generations. PRAMS for Dads provides a nimble, community-centered, evidence-informed solution of actionable data for population health. Data collected is available to share with communities, policy makers and stakeholders to improve fathers’ health, creating a 3-for-1 synergy for healthier fathers, mothers, and babies.

Click on the poster to further explore how FCHIP partners with state health departments to design and implement PRAMS for Dads, analyze and disseminate findings, and apply those findings to shape public health policies and programs.

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