Lois McCloskey

Positions:

• Director, Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health
• Director, MCH Research Fellows Program

My public health career began 30 years ago as an applied anthropologist and educator of community health workers in Nepal. The work inspired my lifelong concern with the health care of women and their infants, particularly in communities that are under-served. In both international and domestic settings, my work focuses on the disconnects between the lives of women and the health care systems meant to serve their needs across the life course and proven strategies for engaging and activating women to be full partners in their reproductive health care and planning. I am currently supported by the NICHD and NIDDK to study the barriers to follow-up testing and prevention for women with gestational diabetes, a harbinger of risk type 2 diabetes mellitus later in life. At BUSPH I serve as Associate Chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences (CHS), Co-Director of the MCH Certificate, and Director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, a Center dedicated to the education of a diverse MCH workforce, ready to lead. As an educator, I specialize in practice-based courses that engage students in the application of their skills and knowledge in real life organizations, addressing real life challenges. Currently I teach “Implementing Community Health Initiatives: A Field-based Course in Leadership and Consultation” and “Sexual and Reproductive Health Advocacy: From Rights to Justice” I completed an MPH in population, family and international health and a DrPH in perinatal epidemiology and health services research at UCLA School of Public Health. Upon graduation, I co-founded the Institute for Urban Health Policy and Research for the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals and served as its Senior Research Scientist for 7 years before joining the faculty of Boston University. During my tenure at the Institute, I led research and community action initiatives designed to mobilize community residents, health professionals, academics, and policy-makers to eliminate racial disparities in infant death and pre-term birth. Our findings led to fundamental changes in how perinatal health services are delivered to women of African descent in Boston. I directed the launch of a study abroad program, “IHP: Health and Community”, dedicated to comparative study of health, systems and culture in four countries. I co-founded the Women’s Health Committee of the MCH Section of the American Public Health Association, am a member of the Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health, and serve on the peer review panels of the Women’s Health Journal, the Maternal and Child Health Journal, the Journal of the Poor and Under-served, and Public Health Reports, BMC Health Services, and BMC Pregnancy and Birth.