Title: MCH Section Happenings

Author:

Section/SPIG: Maternal and Child Health

Issue Date:

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Martha Mae Eliot Award Winner - Dr. Bernard Guyer with MCH Section Chair Dr. Howard Spivak Photo courtesy APHA, by Lagniappe Studio Inc.

Greetings to Our MCH Section Colleagues!

We provide this brief message to update you on happenings and plans of APHA's MCH Section and alert you to important opportunities in the new year.

Both the APHA Annual Meeting scientific and business sessions of the section were highly successful, with robust attendance and engaging discussion. Members present established MCH advocacy as the section's priority focus for 2004, and identified several strategies for taking action:

1. Framing messages to be posed in the upcoming presidential election debates and legislative deliberations;
2. Strengthening ties with other national organizations that advocate for MCH populations;
3. Devising mechanisms to promote greater collaboration with state affiliates in advocacy initiatives; and
4. Designing 2004 Annual Meeting sessions around policy advocacy themes.

The agenda for the Feb. 28 Mid-Year Meeting of the Section (at APHA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.) will involve brainstorming ways of getting MCH issues into the national policy and election debates - we are hoping that many of you will be able to attend and/or provide in writing ideas for a select set of "MCH advocacy messages."

In addition, please note that the section needs volunteers to work on three committees - Membership, Program, and Nominations. Contact Howard Spivak by phone, (617) 636-4780 or e-mail, <hspivak@tufts-nemc.org>, to lend your talents to the important work of the MCH public health community.

Wishing you safe, healthy and nurturing new year,

Howard Spivak
Holly Grason