Over the years, the Maternal and Child Health Section has accomplished many activities within APHA. As a member of our Section, you can help grow our legacy in public health practice!
The Section’s accomplishments include:
- We’ve sponsored a number of resolutions and policy statements adopted by APHA on issues such as maternity care, family health, injury prevention, school lunch programs, child care services, birth records, premarital serologic tests, infant feeding, school health, adolescent health and children with special health care needs.
- Section provides testimony for APHA on behalf of maternal and child health issues.
- Every year, the Section presents the Martha May Eliot Award as well as the Young Professional Award, Effective Practice Award, Outstanding Leadership/Advocacy Award, and the MCH Distinguished Service award to persons who have made distinguished contributions to education, practice or research in the field of maternal and child health.
- The Section organizes and sponsors an average of 30 sessions at the APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition on a range of issues critical to maternal and child health.
- The Section has established policymaking committees and task forces in such fields as adolescent health, child advocacy, injury prevention, family violence, genetics, infant feeding and prenatal care.
- We participate in APHA governance, electing representatives to the APHA Governing Council, Executive Board and other Association-wide committees and task forces.
- Our Section helped establish additional member groups within APHA, including the Population, Reproductive and Sexual Health Section, Family Violence Forum, Breastfeeding Forum and the Genomics Forum.
- We created a model Student Fellows Program, which provides an intensive year of mentorship and training to a select group of students, many of whom have gone on to assume important leadership roles in the Section.
Learn more about the benefits of joining APHA.