Steps in Developing a Public Health Surveillance System for Fathers

Including the voice of the father in research related to fathering is essential. This chapter describes efforts to establish a new public health surveillance for fathers in the United States. The ultimate goal of this research is to study fatherhood to support healthy child development by collecting valuable information on father health and experiences in the perinatal period. Understanding fathers is key to learning about and improving family health, since fathers impact mothers and babies’ health. Studying the health of fathers during the transition to fatherhood can also provide a window into the overall health status of men, expanding the field of public health to include more specifics on the health of fathers and their impact on families. Currently surveillance systems are lacking in including the fathers’ perspective in measurement of paternal health and the transition to fatherhood. To address these issues we utilized a multi-pronged approach to inform development of a public health surveillance system for fathers: (1) review of the current literature to identify gaps in knowledge on the role of fatherhood in male and family health and identify current national-level surveillance data on fathers; (2) assessed feasibility of identifying participants to implement a surveillance system for fathers; (3) conducted formative research to develop methodology; and (4) piloted a public health surveillance system called the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System for Dads or “PRAMS for Dads.”