Missouri Pregnancy Related Assessment and Monitoring System (MoPRA)

Missouri's Pregnancy Related Assessment and Monitoring System (MoPRA) is an ongoing, state-specific, population-based surveillance system based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). The monitoring system is designed to identify and monitor selected maternal behaviors and experiences that occur before, during, or after pregnancy among a sample of women who have recently given birth. The purpose of MoPRA is to provide information to improve the health of mothers and infants by reducing adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight, infant mortality, and maternal illnesses.

The MoPRA sample is chosen from all women who had a live birth recently, so findings can be applied to the state's entire population of women who have recently delivered a liveborn infant.

The goal of MoPRA is to reduce infant illness and death by improving maternal behaviors during and immediately after pregnancy. To achieve that goal, PRAMS has four objectives:

• To collect population-based data of high scientific quality on topics related to pregnancy and early infancy.
• To conduct comprehensive analyses to better understand the relationships between behaviors, attitudes, and experiences during and immediately after pregnancy.
• To translate results of analyses into useful information for planning and evaluating pregnancy-related public health programs and policies.
• To build the capacity of states to collect, analyze, and translate data for use in addressing relevant public health issues.