The Evolving Role of Leadership and Change in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology

Excerpt

Beginning in the 1980s, there was a growing recognition of the need to quantify the work and contributions of state maternal and child health (MCH) departments [1]. In 1987, the Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Program (MCHEP) was initiated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) to provide epidemiologic leadership for State MCH programs [2, 3]. The success of the MCHEP spawned subsequent initiatives to build MCH data capacity including the development of a National Action Agenda, which was led by the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) and CityMatch, and included other national organizations such as the Association of Schools of Public Health, the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and the National Association of County and City Health Officials [4, 5]. The National Action Agenda focused on increased funding in CDC and HRSA for three areas: better training, stronger data and information systems, and more field-based capacity building. These efforts contributed to a plethora of programs in these areas, including the strengthening of masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral MCH epidemiology training opportunities through programs such as: the MCHB MCH Graduate Student Epidemiology Program for master’s level students; the MCHB MCH Epidemiology Doctoral Fellowship Program; and the CDC/MCHB MCH Epidemiology Master’s and Post-Doctoral Fellows Program, directed by CSTE [6, 7]. Programs to strengthen the analytic skills of the present workforce have included: the MCHB/CDC MCH Epidemiology Methods Training Course; the MCHB MCH Navigator, designed to address and support continuous MCH professional and workforce development needs, including epidemiology; the CDC/MCHB pre-conference trainings at the MCH Epidemiology Conference, administered by the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, which have featured such trainings as data linkage, geographic information systems, and needs assessment; pre-conference trainings and focused MCH epidemiology tracks at the CityMatCH and Association of Maternal and Child Health Program Conferences, including trainings on synthetic estimates, small area analysis, and communicating data findings; the CDC evaluation practicum developed to provide a framework for evaluating state MCH programs; and the CDC distance-based course in epidemiologic methods [8‐13]. Additionally, the MCH Epidemiology Conference was established in the mid-1990’s, and has served as the focal point for the latest developments in the field [14, 15]. …