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Health Equity in Maternal & Child Health

April is National Minority Health Month

Life Course Perspective in MCH

The Life Course Perspective is a way of looking at life not as disconnected stages, but as an integrated continuum. It is 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).  
        

    MCH-lifecourse.jpg


Resources

Life Course Research Network - A profound new way to understand health.

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