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PCHHC Newsletter
November 2013 
Preconception Health & Life Course Approach 
laughing-ladies-fam.jpg   Preconception health is an intergenerational opportunity for improving the life course of women and children. Applying a wide lens, our goal is to have happy, healthy, and self-determined young men and women who have plans for their lives and the opportunity to move toward achieving their goals. This holistic wellness lays the foundation for their life course and also that of children they may have in the future. Preconception health also represents a "sensitive period" in human development, as there is strong scientific evidence that a woman's health in the months prior to becoming pregnant and the early weeks of pregnancy can have a direct impact on the health of her baby - at birth and beyond. This loop continues as the health of a child can in turn affect the mother and family's health for decades to come.

Understanding the importance of life course is one thing, applying the life course approach to practice is definitely a greater challenge. MCH is currently at the brink of a paradigm change. This issue of the newsletter offers resources and examples of how some groups and leaders are working to move this change forward. The PCHHC will continue to foster dialogue and share resources on this important topic. We hope you will join us!
Spotlight: Public Health Work Group  

 

In 2012, under the leadership of Mario Drummonds and Kiko Malin, the Public Health Work Group (PHWG) set a series of objectives to achieve over two years. One was to explore the relationship between adult chronic illnesses and maternal and child health (MCH). Research has consistently strengthened the hypothesis that chronic conditions have their antecedents in the fetal and early postnatal period. In addition, there is a substantial body of evidence that links maternal health development across the life course to pregnancy outcomes and as a predictor of adult chronic illnesses. 

 

Dr. Michael Lu's and Dr. Neal Halfon's 2003 MCH Journal paper "Racial & Ethnic Disparities in Birth Outcomes:  A Life-Course Perspective" ushered in a new period of discussion and debate on how MCH services are developed, connected, and delivered.  The life course framework became a disruptive technology urging professionals to rethink or reinvent MCH in America.   

 

While many hospital executives, health department diresmiling-computer-ladies.jpgctors and private MCH agency leaders were excited about life course theory and its potential implications to practice, they have expressed a need for more information as to how to operationalize the theory within their day-to-day practice at the health department level and within the community. Leaders need assistance in transforming their organizational structures, developing new corporate strategies that integrate the life course framework, and learning how to break down departmental silos so women receive seamless services no matter what stage of the life course they entered care. There is also a need for developing new longitudinal data systems to track women and infant across the life course. Life course theory provides leaders with a theoretical and strategic rationale for encouraging internal divisions within health departments to partner and share core competencies to improve the health of women across their lifespan. The current challenge is to match theory with tools  and evidence-based practice. 

 

In 2013 in partnership with the HRSA MCH Bureau, the Public Health Work Group launched a webinar series titled Linked by Life to begin to address the training needs described above. The series highlights health departments who have begun to operationalize life course theory within and outside of their agencies.   The series will continue through 2014. If your agency or program has had success in applying the life course theory to your work, please contact Mario Drummonds.

 

Two webinars currently are archived and available for study:   

The Case for Collaboration of MCH and Chronic Disease to Improve Infant & Women's Health  (April 2013)

For additional information and ideas about transforming your agency into an MCH Life Course Organization, please read these additional remarks by Mario Drummonds.
Promising Practice From the Field
Founded in 2011, Every Woman Southeast (EWSE) is a coalition of 9  Southern states building multi-layered partnerships to improve the health of women and infants in this region.  EWSE is working to engage a wide range of stakeholders to build and sustain an equity-focused, life course approach to women's wellness. They are promoting program and policy strategies to support women and men in creating and actualizing their reproductive life goals.  EWSE is also working to give voice to the ideas, needs, and vision of women in this region.

 

With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, EWSE is funding 8 pilot projects that utilize the life course approach to address reproductive health. All of the projects include teams that are interdisciplinary and include at least one non-traditional partner. The projects are spread across seven states and engaged in working with communities that run from very rural to a major metropolitan area. Some of the strategies the projects are employing include: peer health advocacy and education through churches and colleges; community linkages for high-risk populations; multimedia approaches to community education; systems support for young men; whole-community, inter-generational education on the Life Course and the needs of young adults; and transportation and urban planning to increase access to reproductive health services.

 

EWSE members have been working together to educate leaders in their states about the life course approach through a speaker's bureau, webinars, promoting the use of City MatCH Life Course game and actively outreaching to partners who have not traditionally seen their connection with women and children's health. After decades of falling behind the rest of the nation, the South needs a new paradigm. The life course approach opens the door for challenging health inequity and building wellness for generations now and to come. Please visit the EWSE website to learn more about the Coalition and access our resources. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletters and follow our blog.

Promising Practice From the Field
Best Babies Zone (BBZ), a three-year pilot initiative funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, is housed at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. The vision for the BBZ is that all babies are born healthy and into communities that enable them to thrive and reach their full potential. The Initiative is focused on community transformation to improve birth and early childhood outcomes for babies born in specific geographic zones in three U.S. cities - Cincinnati OH, New Orleans LA, and Oakland CA. The BBZ Initiative is working with local community groups to develop, evaluate, and implement a model for cross-sector collaboration. Key national partners and leading MCH consultants are providing leadership and technical assistance for the Initiative.  

 

By the end of the three-year grant period, the work of these initial sites will serve as a blueprint for future site development and implementation in other cities around the U.S. This will be accomplished by: 1) Identifying a geographic area within a city (a specific "zone") where change is greatly needed and resources are aligned in an effort to produce and measure impact; 2) Establishing a broad collaborative to work across four key sectors - health, economic development, early care and education, and community systems - to achieve collective impact; and 3) Cultivating a public health social movement within each city to rally community action to address the social determinants of health, to improve birth and early childhood outcomes and improve the quality of life overall.

 

Opportunities to achieve improved health must begin where community residents live, work, learn and play. The BBZ will implement strategies not only to improve access to quality health care, but also to transform educational, economic, and community systems in each of its zones. Special attention will be paid to the influence of the social determinants of health and to the importance of building environments that promote and sustain health equity. For more information, please see BBZ's website

About the Newsletter 
Thanks for reading!  Is your organization doing exciting work to promote preconception health?  We would love to feature you in an upcoming newsletter!  Email us for details, or if you have any questions about the newsletter.  

Sign Up for Bi-Weekly Preconception Updates to Your In-Box
To receive a bi-weekly media and literature update on preconception and interconception health through a listserv please email Cheryl Robbins.

Maternal and Child Health Life Course Research Network (LCRN)
is a virtual collaborative network of researchers, service providers and thought leaders committed to improving health and reducing disease by advancing life course health development research.

 

LCRN brings together diverse expertise and perspectives to examine the origins and development of health, and to inform meaningful and evidence-based changes in practice, systems and policies affecting children and families.  Please click here for more information.

AMCHP Life Course Metrics Project   

With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and experts from across the U.S.,  the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs has developed a standardized set of indicators that can measure an agency's progress in improving maternal and child health using the life course approach.  The final set of 59 indicators, as well as tools to help use the indicators, are now available!  Click here for more information.
Military mom & baby 3

New Life Course Articles from the MCH Journal 

The Maternal and Child Health Journal will be publishing a special, life course-focused issue in 2014, but two of the articles are now available online:
Lifecourse Health Development: Past, Present, and Future
Halfon N, Larson K, Lu M, Tullis E, Russ S.

A Lifecourse Approach to Health Development: Implications for the Maternal and Child Health Research Agenda
Russ S, Larson K, Tullis E, Halfon N.

CityMatCH Life Course Toolbox and Game   

The MCH Life Course Toolbox is an online resource for MCH researchers, academics, practitioners, policy advocates, and others in the field to share information, innovative strategies, and tools to integrate the Life Course Perspective into MCH work at the local, state, and national levels.

The Life Course Game is a great tool that models life course in a fun, interactive way. The game is no longer being shipped from CityMatCH, but is available for free download.  Click here to go to the game and printing instructions.

HRSA MCH Life Course Resource Guide 

HRSA's MCH Life Course Resource Guide contains an overview of the life course approach as it applies to the MCH population, as well as implementation tools, teaching resources, and a bibliography.  For more information see the MCH Life Course Resource Guide website.

family-men-outside.jpg Wisconsin Life Course Initiative for Healthy Families  

The Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families (LIHF) is a program created by the Wisconsin Partnership Program and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health that is investigating and addressing the high incidence of African American infant mortality in the state. Check out the plans developed by 4 different communities based on life course.

LIHF's work will be featured in an upcoming EWSE webinar:
Closing the Black/White Gap in Infant Mortality: Ideas, Successes and Lessons Learned from the Wisconsin Life Course Initiative.
Wed, Dec 4, 2013
1:00-2:00pm EST
Click here for more information.

PCHHC Resource Center Showcase 

This month's Resource Center highlight is on the Los Angeles County Dept of Health's report Workforce Development Strategies for Integrating Preconception Health Into Practice.  This report offers good ideas for connecting health and economic development. To access this and other preconception tools, click here.   

 

The PCHHC Resource Center includes   preconception health education materials for men and women, policy  resources, and state and local model programs. Email us if you have new resources to add! 

Newsletter
This e-newsletter is archived.  Find back issues of the newsletter and more information about improving preconception health and health care here.