Introduction
Welcome to the Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence at the University of Illinois Chicago. This center was created through a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop and evaluate innovative approaches to reduce pregnancy-related complications and deaths and promote maternal health outcomes.
The Center will effectively contribute to eliminating maternal morbidity and mortality by taking a system-level approach to addressing maternal health.
Funding Notice: This project is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U54HD113087. The content is solely the responsibility of UIC and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
The Center has three main areas of focus
-
Research
The center will study how exposure to adversity affects pregnancy. Through this research, the Center hopes to shape the policy and programs that can improve maternal health outcomes.
-
Training
The center will work to increase maternal health research capacity and develop future research scientists focused on improving maternal health outcomes.
-
Community Engagement
The Center is partnering with EverThrive Illinois and AllianceChicago, two organizations that have deep connections to maternal health champions and community clinicians across Illinois to ensure that the Center’s work is disseminated throughout the State. As part of community engagement, EverThrive will also lead a Community Advisory Board to help guide the Center’s activities.
About
The UIC Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence will be led by co-principal investigators Rachel Caskey, MD, MPP, Earl M. Bane professor and head and Liz Glassgow, PhD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics, UIC Department of Medicine.
The Center will also have three Core areas of focus:
Research:
The aim of the Research Core is to examine the multilevel exposure to adversity across the life-course by quantifying biological implications in urban postpartum women. The goal is to characterize how adversity impacts biophysical outcomes, is spatially correlated, and contextualizes the daily experiences of women with lived experience in Chicago.
The research will be led by Liz Glassgow, PhD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics, UIC Department of Medicine and Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, PhD, associate professor of nutrition; Sylvia D. Stroup Scholar, University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences.
Training:
The Training Core is a hub for maternal health career development and work-force training for researchers and health professionals. The aims of the Training Core are:
- To increase the diversity of the maternal health research pipeline by recruiting and supporting the academic career development of diverse postdoctoral and junior faculty fellows from clinical and public health backgrounds.
- To develop and successfully implement a robust training program for early-stage investigators to enable them to develop a research career focused on maternal health.
- To provide community-based clinical partners with a robust research training experience that will enable them to successfully undertake or partner with investigators to conduct maternal health research.
- To provide a strong research and journey mentoring program to early-stage investigators to enable them to effectively address maternal health issues including reducing inequities in maternal health outcomes.
The Training Core also features a monthly maternal health journal club and a speaker series focused on maternal health issues and inequities.
The Training Core is led by Arden Handler, DrPH, MPH, Professor Emeritus, Community Health Sciences, Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, UIC School of Public Health.
Community Partnership Core:
The Community Partnership Core expands on existing partnerships with EverThrive Illinois and AllianceChicago to create a multi-sector coalition that shares a common goal of improving maternal outcomes. Through this work, the Center and its partners will convene a statewide Community Advisory Board (CAB) representative of the diverse communities across Illinois and establish community engagement in communities that experience a disproportionate burden of poor maternal outcomes due to structural and systemic inequities.
The aims of the Community Partnership Core include:
- Facilitate, coordinate, and evaluate community engagement and dissemination of research conducted
- Create an integrated community partnership framework to promote meaningful engagement and responsive research and facilitate appropriate and relevant dissemination to communities
- Build capacity for bilateral exchange between community partners and researchers through partnerships that establish shared understanding and goals for research processes and community experiences.
The Community Partnership Core is led by Kenya McRae, JD, PhD, Visiting Research Assistant Professor, UIC Department of Medicine and EverThrive Illinois.
Data Committee:
The Center also will ensure synthesis across all cores with an emphasis on data collection through the establishment of a Data Committee, led by Sage Kim, PhD, Professor, Health Policy and Administration, UIC School of Public Health.
For more information about the Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence, please email: mhcoe@illinois.edu/
News & Events
