Women who are poor, less educated, African American or Native American, or live in rural or inner-city settings, are more likely to experience a severe maternal morbidity or mortality or deliver a low birthweight infant. Factors leading to health disparities around chronic disease are also set early in the life course. The long-term effects of pregnancy and early childhood point to maternal and child health as a key period when interventions may have great impact on adult health and chronic disease. Because the lived environment and socioeconomic status have a larger impact on outcomes than health behaviors and clinical care, research into effective prevention strategies that either reduce poverty or protect from other deleterious social determinants of health for mothers, infants and families are also an urgent priority. The overarching mission of the proposed University of Wisconsin- Madison Prevention Research Center (UWPRC) is to improve the health of low-income women, infants and families through the conduct of high-quality applied health promotion and disease prevention research with a focus on achieving health equity. The UWPRC will accomplish this by engaging multidisciplinary campus researchers, public health practitioners, community-based and governmental organizations and families to develop a research and translational agenda. The agenda will emphasize policy and systems strategies at the foundation of the CDC Health Impact Pyramid where there is broad population impact. The UWPRC reflects a partnership of the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Institute for Research on Poverty, and the School of Human Ecology. To support this work, the UWPRC has established an Administrative Team, engaged core faculty from across campus, and developed a Community Advisory Board and Translational Partners Panel. Center activities are designed build a strong infrastructure to support and expand collaboration with community members and enable high quality and community grounded intervention, implementation, and public health practice-based research and translation. The initial core center research project ?Addressing Postpartum Depression in Wisconsin Home Visiting Programs? brings a novel community-based approach to reducing the impact of maternal depression, experienced by approximately 20% of new mothers overall and nearly 30% of low income mothers in Wisconsin, on infant development and health. The core project Principal Investigator will work with the center to adapt and refine for translation, within federally-funded home visiting programs, an efficacious intervention that improves maternal depression symptoms and supports infant attachment. This flagship state university, the fifth largest research university in the country, has a long history of addressing needs across the state (known as the Wisconsin Idea). The geographic, socioeconomic, racial and ethnic diversity make Wisconsin an outstanding real world setting in which to conduct community-engaged prevention research that will support broad translation to other states and regions.
The overarching mission of the proposed University of Wisconsin-Madison Prevention Research Center (UWPRC) is to improve the health of low-income women, infants and families through the conduct of high-quality applied health promotion and disease prevention research with a focus on achieving health equity. The UWPRC will accomplish this by engaging multidisciplinary campus researchers, public health practitioners, community- based and governmental organizations and families to develop a research and translational agenda. The agenda will emphasize policy and systems strategies at the foundation of the CDC Health Impact Pyramid where there is broad population impact.
