Washington, D.C., November 9, 2004
- Charles Samuel Mahan, MD, today accepted the American Public Health Association's Martha May Eliot Award for 2004. The award honors exceptional achievements in the field of maternal and child health.
"His publications are outstanding, his teaching is amazing and his continued building of relationships with practice is a model in itself," APHA member Martha L. Coulter, DrPH, wrote in a 2004 nomination letter. "There is no more deserving person for the Martha May Eliot Award than Dr. Charles Mahan."
Mahan is not only the director of maternal and child health policy for the Florida-based Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies, but is recognized by his colleagues as an expert and distinguished pioneer in the field. As a full professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Florida, Mahan teaches in the university's Graduate School and also serves as a courtesy professor at the College of Medicine at the University of Florida. Previously, he was dean of the University of South Florida College of Public Health for seven years.
It all began in 1964, with a fellowship in endocrinology at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago. While there, maternal and child public health, and specifically pregnancy prevention, sparked Mahan's interest. Following his interest, he became the chief obstetrics/gynecology resident at Hennepin County General Hospital in Minneapolis. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Mahan joined the University of Minnesota Medical School as an assistant and then associate professor.
Named a 'pioneer' by colleagues, Mahan is credited with developing the first "red door clinics." These clinics aimed to reduce stigma and offer services to venereal disease populations that previously did not have access to care. Focusing mainly on public health during his time in Minnesota, Mahan defined strategies that would continue to develop throughout his career: the role of patients in the provision of maternal and child health care and the importance of interdisciplinary teams in service delivery.
The year 1974 brought Mahan to Gainesville, Fla., where he directed activities of early mothers, infants and children projects at the University of Florida's Shands Hospital in northern Florida. In pursuit of a pregnancy prevention grant, Mahan began his first large-scale research effort which included three nurse practitioner-based teams. During a year sabbatical in 1982, he wrote the Florida state infant mortality plan, which served as the basis for the 1991 Florida Healthy Start. From 1982 to 1987, Mahan served as the director of Florida's maternal and child health and as state health director for seven consecutive years, beginning in 1988.
Currently, Mahan is working on state and national policy development with the American College of Nurse Midwives. He is pushing to make midwifery the standard of care for Medicaid and is also aiming to make trained labor support personnel, or doulas, available for Medicaid births.
The Martha May Eliot Award is an addition to Mahan's award collection, which includes the first and only 2002 Florida Public Health Icon Award.
Founded in 1872, the APHA is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. The association aims to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States. APHA represents a broad array of health providers, educators, environmentalists, policy-makers and health officials at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions.