1. Women’s Perceived Control of Their Birth Outcomes: Implications for the Use of Preconception Care Carol Weisman, 1 Marianne Hillemeier, 1 Gary Chase, 1 Dawn Misra, 2 Anne-Marie Dyer 1 1 Pennsylvania State University; 2 University of Michigan Introduction Prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes is an important public health goal that has recently received renewed attention with the release of CDC “Recommendations to Improve Preconception Health and Health Care—United States. These recommendations focus on improving pregnancy-related outcomes by promoting women’s health before pregnancy. It is not known whether women contemplating pregnancy believe they can increase the likelihood of having a healthy baby through actions of their own. This topic is relevant to promoting preconceptional health since women would not be expected to modify their health behaviors if they do not believe that their actions can influence birth outcomes. This study examines women’s beliefs about whether or not they can influence their future birth outcomes with respect to the baby’s health, and the factors that are associated with internal locus of control for birth outcomes. The overall hypothesis is that internal locus of control for birth outcomes is a function of prior pregnancy experiences, current health status and stress levels, access to health care, and sociodemographics. Methods Data come from the Central Pennsylvania Women’s Health Study (CePAWHS) RDD survey of 2,002 women ages 18-45. The analytic sample is 614 non-pregnant women with current reproductive capacity who report considering a future pregnancy. DEPENDENT VARIABLES I.Internal Control of Birth Outcomes Scale: This scale score is a summated rating based on 4 items to which the woman responded strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree: 1.There is nothing I can do to make sure my child is born healthy 2.It is my job as a mother to make sure my child is born healthy 3.I could make very few choices that would affect my child’s health at birth 4.I could do many things to make sure my child is born healthy Scores were dichotomized at the median to indicate higher or lower control II. Preconceptiional Control: Women responded strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree to: “There are things I can do before I become pregnant to make sure my child is born healthy.” (dichotomized in analyses) III. High Internal Control on Both: Dummy variable coded 1 if both I and II above were classified as High internal control. Results *Table 1 shows Independent variables significantly associated with the dependent variables: SF-12 Physical Component Score, any health insurance gap in past 12 mo, age, marital status, and education. *Table 2 displays multiple logistic regression results for 3 dependent variables. --None of the measures of birth experiences or health care access attain statistical significance in any of the models. --SF-12 physical score is associated with increased odds of high control in the Internal Control of Birth Outcomes and the combined measure --Older age and higher educational attainment are associated with higher internal control in all models; being unmarried reduces the odds of high control in 2 models Conclusions *Variables associated with internal locus of control of birth outcomes among women considering a future pregnancy are primarily sociodemographic and physical health-related. * Efforts to increase women’s use of preconception care could target those with lower internal control, including younger, less educated, unmarried, and less healthy women. *Intervention should also focus on increasing self-efficacy for specific actions to improve birth outcomes among women who are at higher risk based on prior adverse pregnancy outcomes.