EXPANDING THE EVIDENCE-BASE FOR PREVENTION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF WOMEN, INFANTS, AND FAMILIES

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACTWomen who are poor, less educated, African American or Native American, or live in rural or inner-city settings,are more likely to experience a severe maternal morbidity or mortality or deliver a low birthweight infant. Factorsleading to health disparities around chronic disease are also set early in the life course. The long-term effects ofpregnancy and early childhood point to maternal and child health as a key period when interventions may havegreat impact on adult health and chronic disease. Because the lived environment and socioeconomic statushave a larger impact on outcomes than health behaviors and clinical care, research into effective preventionstrategies that either reduce poverty or protect from other deleterious social determinants of health for mothers,infants and families are also an urgent priority. The overarching mission of the proposed University of Wisconsin-Madison Prevention Research Center (UWPRC) is to improve the health of low-income women, infants andfamilies through the conduct of high-quality applied health promotion and disease prevention research with afocus on achieving health equity. The UWPRC will accomplish this by engaging multidisciplinary campusresearchers, public health practitioners, community-based and governmental organizations and families todevelop a research and translational agenda. The agenda will emphasize policy and systems strategies at thefoundation of the CDC Health Impact Pyramid where there is broad population impact. The UWPRC reflects apartnership of the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Institute for Research on Poverty, andthe School of Human Ecology. To support this work, the UWPRC has established an Administrative Team,engaged core faculty from across campus, and developed a Community Advisory Board and TranslationalPartners Panel. Center activities are designed build a strong infrastructure to support and expand collaborationwith community members and enable high quality and community grounded intervention, implementation, andpublic health practice-based research and translation. The initial core center research project “AddressingPostpartum Depression in Wisconsin Home Visiting Programs” brings a novel community-based approachto reducing the impact of maternal depression, experienced by approximately 20% of new mothers overall andnearly 30% of low income mothers in Wisconsin, on infant development and health. The core project PrincipalInvestigator will work with the center to adapt and refine for translation, within federally-funded home visitingprograms, an efficacious intervention that improves maternal depression symptoms and supports infantattachment. This flagship state university, the fifth largest research university in the country, has a long historyof addressing needs across the state (known as the Wisconsin Idea). The geographic, socioeconomic, racialand ethnic diversity make Wisconsin an outstanding real world setting in which to conduct community-engagedprevention research that will support broad translation to other states and regions.!