Bazzano Alessandra N, Pies Cheri, Lu Michael C, Parthasarathy Padmini, Fine Amy, Kotelchuck Milton
Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences; Center of Excellence in Maternal Child Health, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, USA.
University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, USA.
Matern Child Health J. 2024 Jul 16. doi: 10.1007/s10995-024-03938-y.
A life course perspective in maternal, child, and family health allows for integrated exploration of outcomes, incorporating multifactorial determinants of health to interrogate sources of inequity and identify opportunities for intervention. This article explores the historical development, integration, and implications of the contemporary life course perspective in the field of maternal and child health (MCH), and particularly the people and events which institutionalized the framework as central to national and local MCH practice and research over the last decades.
Drawing on an oral history approach, key leaders of the life course movement in MCH were interviewed. Lived experiences and personal recollections of six interviewees were recorded and synthesized using a narrative descriptive approach to portray the social ecology of the movement's origins.
We documented systematic efforts made in the first two decades of the 21st century to consciously promote life course through convening a National MCH Life Course Invitational Meeting, incorporating life course as a foundational framework for strategic planning at the Maternal Child Health Bureau, and development of tools and resources by MCH professional organizations.
The integration of life course theory into the MCH field signified a major shift towards addressing protective and social factors, which aligns with the field's historical emphasis on social justice and rights-based approaches, and parallels the broader public health movement towards social determinants of health and the need to address structural racism. The ongoing relevance of the life course approach in promoting reproductive justice and addressing inequities in health underscores the historical importance of its adoption and use in the current mainstream of MCH research, policy, and practice.
母婴和家庭健康领域的生命历程视角有助于对结果进行综合探索，纳入健康的多因素决定因素，以审视不平等的根源并确定干预机会。本文探讨了当代生命历程视角在母婴健康（MCH）领域的历史发展、整合及影响，特别是在过去几十年中将该框架制度化，使其成为国家和地方母婴健康实践与研究核心的相关人员和事件。
采用口述历史方法，对母婴健康领域生命历程运动的关键领导人进行了访谈。记录并综合了六位受访者的生活经历和个人回忆，采用叙事描述方法描绘该运动起源的社会生态。
我们记录了21世纪前二十年为有意识地推动生命历程所做的系统性努力，包括召开全国母婴健康生命历程邀请会议、将生命历程纳入母婴健康局战略规划的基础框架，以及母婴健康专业组织开发工具和资源。
将生命历程理论融入母婴健康领域标志着在解决保护因素和社会因素方面的重大转变，这与该领域历史上对社会正义和基于权利方法的强调相一致，也与更广泛的公共卫生运动中对健康社会决定因素的关注以及解决结构性种族主义的需求相平行。生命历程方法在促进生殖正义和解决健康不平等方面的持续相关性凸显了其在当前母婴健康研究、政策和实践主流中采用和应用的历史重要性。
