Healthy Generations eNewsletter

Congratulations to the Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health faculty Jamie Stang, PhD, MPH, RDN, Zobeida E. Bonilla, PhD, MPH, and MCH faculty member, Ellen W. Demerath, PhD on co-authoring “Training the MCH workforce: The Time for Change is now.” The article focuses on recruitment and retention strategies in the MCH workforce.

Congratulations to MCH Program Chair, Dr. Zobeida Bonilla, who wrote the piece Clipped Wings: Puerto Rico, Colonialism and Public Health in the September issue of the Notes on Antiracism, Justice, and Equity newsletter. The article touches on a possible change in responsive measures in Puerto Rico that could allow for an extreme advantage over natural disasters such as Hurricane Fiona which hit the island on September 18, 2022. Subscribe to view more monthly newsletters from Notes on Antiracism, Justice, and Equity.

#UMNMCH student Summer Reid, she/her/hers (MPH 2023) wrote this reflection on how her deployment with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) working with PRAMS Data helped contribute to her career in Maternal and Child Health (MCH).

Achiri Fon-Achu (he/him/his; MPH 2022) was one of two #UMNMCH students who received the Robert Ten Bensel Scholarship in 2021-2022. The scholarship is a one-time scholarship awarded annually by the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health to students who demonstrate outstanding potential for contributions to the principles of maternal and child health, human equity, and community social justice. In spring 2022, we invited Achiri to answer a few questions about his work as a medical doctor and public health masters student working with MCH communities. Read about his experience here!

Theresa Boyer is the newest author for the latest National MCH Trainee blog post on MCH Leadership Competency 3: Ethics. Theresa is a first-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her MSPH from the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins in 2022, where she was a recipient of the MCH Training Grant. In her post, Theresa shares her reflections on the ethics of meeting an individual through big data and answers the question “what do we owe to our participants and the public?” She says “My data may capture this person on one of the best days of their life, such as the birth of a new baby, or one of the absolute worst days of their life, such as being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit after losing too much blood during their delivery.” Continue reading here.

The Center is proud to co-sponsor the following events:

October 14, 2022 | 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CDT

The past decade has seen a steady and dramatic increase in legislative attacks on abortion access in the United States, often under the perilous guise of “protecting women’s health.” A robust body of evidence has, however, demonstrated that access to abortion is vital to the health and well-being of pregnant people and their families and that restrictions on abortion access threaten public health. With the recent repeal of Roe v Wade, people in more than half of the country will be forced to make decisions regarding traveling for care, navigating self-care options, or not receiving care at all. The tortuous financial, logistical, and legal barriers to abortion that are emerging in a Post-Roe United States will only further exacerbate structural inequities and imperiling the health, lives, freedom, and reproductive well-being of millions of Americans. Dr. Caitlyn Gerdts, Vice President for Research at Ibis Reproductive Health, will be presenting. Sponsored by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health's: Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health, and MCH Student Interest Group.

-To register

November 17, 2022 | 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM CDT

Positive deviance is an approach to program development, evaluation, and research which leads to asset-based solutions and messages that come from within and build upon the strengths of communities. It has been used across the globe to identify low-cost, easily accessible health interventions using community-engaged methods. This session will provide attendees with an understanding of:

1. What the positive deviance approach is
2. Why this approach is valuable in public health and health care settings
3. How the approach has been used to address common health care issues, and
4. What the future of positive deviance in research and practice looks like

Presenter Alex Foster, MD, MPH is a pediatrician-public health scientist who directs the MD-MPH program and serves on the Epidemiology faculty at the University of Oregon Health Sciences University-Portland State University School of Public Health. His research interests focus on addressing obesity in childhood, particularly for low-income populations at higher risk of continued obesity and the subsequent associated complications. Dr. Foster’s research work has focused on understanding what assets communities have and building off of those, and he has also examined using parent mentors as an intervention model to support behavioral change.

Register here! Check the Mini-Lab webpage for more information or email minilab@umn.edu and ask to be added to the contact list.

Steroid treatment before preterm infants birth appears to have significant improvement in survival and decreased morbidity according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Antenatal steroid therapy, given to women at risk of preterm delivery, causes the fetal lungs to mature and has been shown to improve survival and reduce complications among infants born from 24 to 34 weeks of pregnancy.

-Read

Through a systematic review and meta-analysis, it was made apparent that short birth interval (SBI) is linked with higher rates of child mortality in low and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), specifically in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh. The article shares both the data collected and recommendations to combat child mortality rates in LMICs.

-Read

October 18, 2022 | 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM CDT | In-Person or Virtual

HealthPartners Institute is excited to launch a Pregnancy and Child Health Research Center. The Center aims to support and partner on research that addresses the well-being and health of pregnant people, infants, children, and families, including adolescents and young adults. In conjunction with this new Center, staff are inviting you to attend their Pregnancy and Child Health Research Center 2022 Symposium. The keynote address will be given by Center faculty member Dr. Jaime Slaughter-Acey who will present "Racism, Colorism, and Preterm Birth: Putting the puzzle pieces together." The symposium will also highlight recent findings on the safety of vaccines in pregnancy and disparities in adolescent vaccine coverage.

-Register

October 19, 2022 | 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM CDT

The annual Minnesota Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) Summit gathers public health professionals from around the state to exchange information and create a healthier Minnesota through effective public health education practice. This year's theme is Building Bridges in Health Education: Getting Back to the Work We Love. Presenters will speak on topics of trauma recovery, healthy equity within gender and sexual minority youth, community and school partnerships to health education, career development, a poster session, networking, and more!

-Register

October 26, 2022 | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT

This webinar will provide an overview of what a community health needs assessment (CHNA) can look like from the perspective of a governmental public health practitioner. The event will outline the “what,” “why,” “who,” and “how” of a CHNA, including barriers and lessons learned to prepare attendees to participate in or lead their own CHNA in a strengths-based manner.

-Register

November 6-8, 2022 | In-Person or Virtual

The Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health (MACMH) has opened registration for the 5th annual conference, Connecting to What We Know. The conference brings together multidisciplinary professionals to promote infant mental health practices as well as current research practices.

-Register

November 10, 2022 |12:30 PM - 2:30 PM CDT

The workshop will provide a broad overview of the historical, cultural, and community factors that shape young children’s development for the Indigenous population in the U.S. Participants will develop a deeper understanding of both the risks to development from historical and structural inequalities prevalent in many tribal communities and the sources of resilience that derive from the rich cultural beliefs, practices and extended family relationships. There is a $30 fee for the event but if you are not able to attend during the specific time allotted, a recording will be available to view up to 30 days after the event.

-Register

The National Home Visiting Resource Center (NHVRC) has released its 2022 Home Visiting Yearbook, a nationwide and state-by-state look at early childhood home visiting. The publication presents 2021 data from evidence-based and emerging home visiting models and from state agencies. The 2022 Yearbook includes virtual and in-person home visit data to reflect the field’s flexible response to the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic. It also includes maternal and child health indicator data disaggregated by race and ethnicity to convey families’ wide range of experiences accessing community support and services.

The 27th Annual Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference is happening in person in Duluth, Minnesota on April 23-25, 2023 (supported by the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health). The conference is one of the largest children's mental health conferences in the nation with nearly 2,000 participants each year. They are looking for presentations for their conference. The submission deadline is Friday, October 28, 2022.

-Submit proposals

The theme for the 2023 conference is Evolving Public Health: Learning Today to Transform Tomorrow. Abstracts should focus on current and emerging public health issues and need to be submitted by October 20, 2022, at 11:59 PM CDT.

-Submit abstract

You received this message because you have subscribed to the Healthy Generations listserv. This newsletter is produced monthly by the Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Email mch@umn.edu to have your event, resource, or publication included in our eNewsletter.

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