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