Upcoming Webinars

Featuring Neal Halfon, MD, MPH (Director, UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities) and Lisa Stanley, DrPH (Project Director, Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems, UCLA CHCFC)   This webinar will describe the rollout of the EDI in the US and explore how the EDI is being utilized by communities such as San Antonio, Hartford, Spartanburg, and Pasadena, to engage all segments of the community in collective work to improve local early childhood programs, systems and policies.   Neal Halfon, MD, MPH (Director, UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities)   Lisa Stanley, DrPH (Project Director, Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems, UCLA CHCFC)   Webinar recording  available here   …

This webinar, part of the LCRN’s series on Measuring Health Development of Children and Youth, features Martin Guhn, PhD (Assistant Professor, Human Early Learning Partnership, University of British Columbia) and Magdalena Janus, PhD (Professor, McMaster University).   This webinar will provide an introduction to a comprehensive life course monitoring system that supports a systems approach, how Canada has made an impact with EDI, and how they are building the early stages of the system with the TDI and CHEQ measurement systems.   Martin Guhn, PhD (Assistant Professor, Human Early Learning Partnership, University of British Columbia)   Magdalena Janus, PhD (Professor, McMaster University)   Webinar recording available here  

  Abstract There has been a long-standing interest in better understanding how social factors contribute to racial disparities in health, including birth outcomes. A recent emphasis in this context has been on identifying the effects of stress exposure and protective factors experienced over the entire lifetime. Yet despite repeated calls for a life course approach to research on this topic, very few studies have actually assessed how stressors and protective factors occurring over women’s lives relate to birth outcomes. We discuss this issue here by describing how challenges in the measurement of lifetime stress exposure and protective factors have prevented researchers from developing an empirically-based life course perspective on health. …

  Abstract Maternal prenatal nutrition and the child’s nutrition in the first 2 years of life (1000 days) are crucial factors in a child’s neurodevelopment and lifelong mental health. Child and adult health risks, including obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, may be programmed by nutritional status during this period. Calories are essential for growth of both fetus and child but are not sufficient for normal brain development. Although all nutrients are necessary for brain growth, key nutrients that support neurodevelopment include protein; zinc; iron; choline; folate; iodine; vitamins A, D, B6, and B12; and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. Failure to provide key nutrients during this critical period of brain development may …

Abstract A life-course approach to health encompasses strategies across individuals’ lives that optimize their functional ability (taking into account the interdependence of individual, social, environmental, temporal and intergenerational factors), thereby enabling well-being and the realization of rights. The approach is a perfect fit with efforts to achieve universal health coverage and meet the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Properly applied, a life-course approach can increase the effectiveness of the former and help realize the vision of the latter, especially in ensuring health and well-being for all at all ages. Its implementation requires a shared understanding by individuals and societies of how health is shaped by multiple factors throughout life and across …

Abstract The Health Care Transitions Research Network for Autism Spectrum Disorder and other Developmental Disabilities and the Life Course Research Network, both funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, invited articles for this Supplement. Our goal in this Supplement is to highlight and explore developmental and transition-related challenges over the life course of individuals on the autism spectrum and other neurodevelopmental disabilities, discuss the clinical and practice implications of these issues, highlight gaps in knowledge, and identify directions for future research.   Read full article