Innovations in Maternal and Child Health: Pairing Undergraduate and Graduate Maternal and Child Health Students in Summer Practica in State Title V Agencies.

Objective As part of the National MCH Workforce Development Center, an innovative internship program placed MCH undergraduate and graduate students in summer practica in state Title V agencies. Graduate student mentoring of undergraduates and leadership and professional development training and support are key features of the program. The objective of this paper is to report on the results of the evaluation of the MCH Paired Practica Program in its pilot years, 2014-2016.

Training maternal and child health epidemiologists: leaders for the twenty first century.

This paper reports on the structure, implementation and outcomes of the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Epidemiology (MCHEPI) program at the University of Illinois School of Public Health (UIC-SPH) and discusses the successes and challenges in developing MCH Epidemiology leaders for the local, state, and national public health workforce. The MCHEPI program at UIC-SPH offers both the MPH and PhD degree and is based on six key components: integration across school divisions, competency-based training, tailored curricula, practica/dissertations with public health agencies, personal leadership training and development, and socialization. Based on data from the 1998-2012 cohorts, all former and current MCHEPI MPH students (n = 28) have participated in practica with local or state public health agencies and former and current MCHEPI doctoral students at the dissertation stage (12 out of 15) have partnered with local, state or national public health agencies in conducting their dissertations.