Dr. Gene Declercq and Dr. Candice Belanoff, professors at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), are part of a team recognized by the National Coalition for Excellence in MCH Epidemiology for improving public health practice through effective use of data, epidemiology and applied research.
[Photo: Dr. Gene Declercq (left) and Dr. Candice Belanoff]
In September, Dr. Declercq and Dr. Belanoff will receive the “2014 Effective Practice—State Level Award” at the CityMatCH Leadership and MCH Epidemiology Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. The award honors their work with the Pregnancy to Early Life Longitudinal Data System (PELL) project, a collaboration of BUSPH, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Declercq, a professor of community health sciences, is a PELL co-founder, and Dr. Belanoff, an assistant professor of community health sciences, has worked on the project for the past five years. PELL’s extensive data system links a core dataset of birth and fetal death files, hospital discharge records, and maternal delivery records with program and state agency records from Early Intervention, Birth Defects, WIC, Newborn Hearing Screening, Substance Abuse Services, and Assisted Reproductive Technology, and others.