Maternal and Child Health.
As part of Boston University’s on-campus Master of Public Health (MPH) degree, you have the option to add a Context Certificate to your functional area of concentration, deepening your knowledge in an area or population of greatest interest to you.
Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Context Certificate
Assuring that women, their partners, children, and adolescents are healthy and thriving is central to the public health mission throughout the world. This 12-credit certificate expands knowledge and skills needed to understand the complex biologic, social, and systems-related determinants of key MCH challenges (such as infant and maternal mortality, reproductive justice, and youth development), evaluate MCH research, and critically assess and implement programs, policies, and advocacy strategies to achieve equity across MCH populations.
Upon graduation, students will be able to:
- Apply a life course framework, combining knowledge of human development and the cumulative impacts of all social and biologic determinants of health and systemic forms of oppression.
- Illustrate how key international and/or national and community-level organizations and systems promote and impede women’s, reproductive, child, and adolescent health.
- Critically evaluate research, programs, and policies designed created to meet MCH challenges of the 21st century in the United States and LMIC.
- Communicate key findings and their significance to public health practice in diverse audiences.
- Apply strategies for equitable, collaborative partnerships with communities, based on common recognition of sources of structured social privilege and disadvantage and a shared goal of seeking to expand community assets and power to improve health outcomes.
Sample Course Titles
- Women, Children and Adolescents: A Public Health Approach
- Global Reproductive and Perinatal Health
- The Health of Adolescents and Emerging Adults
- Preventing Mental Health Concerns: A Life Course Perspective
- Social Justice and the Health of Populations: Racism and Other Systems of Oppression in the United States
View the BU Bulletin for Course Requirements
Sample Practicum
Infant Mortality Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network, Institute for Child Health Quality (NICHQ), Boston
Certificate Directors
“At BUSPH, we define MCH broadly, as reflected in our certificate competencies. I’m thrilled too that the Maternal and Child Health certificate at SPH comes with all kinds of special opportunities, including a Diversity Scholars Program for students from under-represented backgrounds and Fellowships that are all about hands-on, mentored experience on faculty research or community-based practice teams offered through our Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence at SPH. The Maternal and Child Health certificate program welcomes you whether you have your eyes set on a career centered on reproductive health and family formation, child or adolescent health, or the health of historically marginalized communities more broadly.” —Lois McCloskey
“The Maternal and Child Health certificate will teach you to become an informed consumer of scientific literature on the health of women and their children. Knowing how to critically review research findings and determine their significance to practice and policies will help ensure your success in this rich and diverse field.” —Ann Aschengrau
Fall 2023/Spring 2024 Maternal and Child Health Certificate Roadmap*
Fall 2022/Spring 2023 Maternal and Child Health Certificate Roadmap*
*Please note that all roadmaps are subject to change
Contact the Department of Community Health Sciences, the home of the MHSU Context Certificate, for any questions.
Registrar
Graduate Student Life