Welcome to the CSTE Chronic Disease/Maternal & Child Health/Oral Health Committee!
 
This committee seeks to facilitate and support the efforts of chronic disease, maternal and child health, and oral health epidemiologists working in state, territorial, local, and tribal health agencies, and to provide a forum for collaboration.
 
Chronic disease, maternal and child health, and oral health epidemiologists all provide leadership in their organizations by coordinating information and resources across multiple systems existing in numerous public and private agencies to ensure comprehensive surveillance, implementation of special epidemiologic studies, and availability of epidemiologic information needed for policy and program development. While we may work in different topic areas, many of our epidemiologic tools and methods are the same, and we have much to learn from each other and many opportunities to collaborate on cross-cutting issues.
 
This committee strives to facilitate communication and collaboration among peers and partner organizations; to strengthen the workforce for chronic disease, maternal and child health, and oral health applied epidemiology; to develop and disseminate products that strengthen and guide the practice of chronic disease, maternal and child health, and oral health epidemiology; and to advocate for resources and scientifically-based policies that strengthen our fields.
 
If you are interested in becoming more involved in this committee, please let us know. We welcome your involvement.
 

Chronic Disease Epidemiology 

Recently, the committee has had a strong interest in building chronic disease epidemiology capacity in state health departments. Efforts in this area include publication of the report Essential Functions of Chronic Disease Epidemiology in State Health Departments, conducting the 2003 CSTE chronic disease epidemiology capacity survey, and developing the 2007 CSTE position statement on state-level chronic disease epidemiology capacity. Many of the current and future activities relate to moving forward on the recommendations made in that position statement.

Current CSTE activities

• List of indicators for chronic disease epidemiology capacity that correspond to the domains described in the 2004 CSTE chronic disease epidemiology capacity survey 
• On-line rapid assessment tool to measure these indicators in each state 
• Capacity survey in all states 
• Production/dissemination of one page capacity profiles for each state

Maternal and Child Health

Previous assessments of the field of MCH Epidemiology resulted in many recommendations, including the need to identify best practices for the field, the importance of advanced training for MCH epidemiology staff, the need for MCH staff to have ready access to a variety of databases including those that are linked, and the necessity of a visible MCH epidemiology presence. 
 
Recent efforts to better organize maternal and child health (MCH) epidemiologists in state and local public health agencies are underway. Initial discussions among MCH epidemiologists and partners took place at the 2007 MCH EPI Conference. Since then, a committee has been working on purposes for a more formal organizational structure and is now deciding how best to accomplish them. Stay tuned for more information to be forthcoming.