Clinical Research Directory

Prospective Cohort Study of Protected Children

A significant number of children are abused or neglected every year. This exposure is associated with short- and long-term consequences for their mental and somatic health. In France, 308,000 minors are benefiting from at least one child protective service or measure. There are few data on the health status of this population, and how it is evolving. Against this backdrop, interventions are needed to address the many needs of these children early and comprehensively, both in the short and long term. The PEGASE program, funded by the French government under Article 51, aims to ensure adequate medical follow-up - both somatic and psychiatric - for children taken into care by child protective services (CPS). An evaluation of the program's effectiveness and efficiency is needed to inform public decision-making on the appropriateness of extending it to all children under CPS's care. This requires the creation of a control cohort of children followed by CPS but not benefiting from the PEGASE program, the ESPER cohort (Prospective cohort study of protected children), which will enable us to carry out a comparative evaluation of the PEGASE program, as well as to provide information on the health of children followed by the CPS at the time of their placement and its evolution over time, data which are rare in France. The main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of the PEGASE program on the evolution of the mental health of children followed by the CPS after 2 years of follow-up.

Homeless Veterans and Peer Whole Health Coaching

Use of acute care services (e.g., hospitalizations, Emergency Department visits) contributes substantially to the cost of healthcare for Veterans. Homelessness is a robust social determinant of super utilization of acute care. The goal of this project is to test if Peer Specialists trained in Whole Health Coaching can reduce homeless Veterans' frequent use of acute care.