Life Course Perspective in MCH
What is the Life Course Perspective?
The Life Course Perspective is a way of looking at life not as disconnected stages, but as an integrated continuum.And, it’s a tool for understanding and impacting health disparities, particularly disparities that originate in childhood. It focuses on how early life experiences can shape health across a lifetime and potentially generations.
Looking at health through a life course perspective hopes to address three key areas:
- Your health as an individual
- Your health before your conception (i.e. your mom’s health preconception/interconception)
- Your children’s health (intergenerational component).
Resources:
Life Course Research Network - A profound new way to understand health.
A Life Course Approach in MCH
http://mchb.hrsa.gov/lifecourseapproach.html
City-Match: Life Course ToolBox
https://www.citymatch.org/mch-life-course/
Selected MCH Life Course and Health Equity Bibliography
http://cchealth.org/lifecourse/bibliography.php