Child Health in America – Why the US needs child health leadership NOW!

Presented by Judith Palfrey

This webinar was presented live on February 4th, 2022. If you missed it, check out the recording, here.

Using the challenges facing children and families in the US in 2022, Dr. Palfrey will outline the ways that child health leaders can work in partnership with families and communities to improve children’s health status. She will discuss the Richmond Model to outline child health leaders can effect positive change. Dr. Palfrey will discuss the work of some child health leaders to illustrate how child health leaders are responding to the challenges of the millennial morbidity and of the pandemic. 

Judith Palfrey is the T. Berry Brazelton Professor of Pediatrics Emerita at Harvard Medical School and the Emerita Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital. She was the National Director of Building Bright Futures, the Director of the National Program Office of the Anne E. Dyson Pediatric Training in the Community Initiative and is a Past President of the Academic Pediatrics Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Palfrey has focused her career on developing programs that address the social determinants of child health. She has promoted community interventions such as home visiting, school based coordination for children with disabilities, and early education. She has been active nationally in expanding opportunities for physicians to learn how to integrate advocacy into their daily practice as well as into their overall career directions.  Her book Child Health in America, Making a Difference Through Advocacy includes information on clinical, group, legislative and professional advocacy.

Along with colleagues in Global Pediatrics Program at Children’s Hospital, Boston, she has helped establish training and service programs in international sites based on her experiences in the United States. Dr. Palfrey has worked with an interdisciplinary group of Chilean and American partners on Recupera Chile, a program of community reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake in the Bio Bio region of Chile. She is currently assisting the China Medical Board in the development of a Commission on Children’s Health in the US and in China. She and several international colleagues have published the book Global Child Health Advocacy that uses the stories of child health advocates around the world to illustrate the steps required to move new health knowledge to action.

Dr. Palfrey focuses much of her research on improving services for children with disabilities and chronic conditions. She is currently the co-PI for an MCH Bureau CoIIN project on enhancing care for children with complex medical conditions. She is also a co-author on a curriculum for teaching Community Health Workers how they can engage with Children with Special Health Care Needs.

Missed a previous webinar? Check out previous recordings here.