Arden Handler, DrPH, MPH

Dr. Arden Handler is the Director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health and Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. Dr. Handler’s research career reflects her long-standing commitment to reducing inequities and improving the health of women, pregnant and postpartum persons, children, and families. Her specific interest is the exploration of factors that increase the risk for inequities in adverse pregnancy outcomes and examining ways in which the health care delivery system, particularly how prenatal care, postpartum care, and preconception/interconception/well-woman care can ameliorate these risks and reduce inequities. Other research and teaching interests include maternal and child health advocacy and policy, building the analytic capacity of the MCH workforce (MCH epidemiology), and the structure and functioning of the public health delivery system. Dr. Handler is PI of the evaluation of the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program, recent PI of the evaluation of Family Connects Chicago, co-PI for the evaluation of OCEAN Healthy Start, and is currently working on a number of projects focused on the delivery of health care in the postpartum period. She is Co-PI (multiple PIs) of the HRSA funded Innovations to ImPROve Maternal OuTcomEs in Illinois (I PROMOTE-IL) and co-I of Improving Maternal Health Through an Adaptation of a Two-Generation Postpartum Care Model in Diverse Settings. She is a former member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM) and a nationally renowned leader in maternal and child health advocacy, policy, epidemiology, and public health system improvement. In recognition of her contributions, she is a recipient of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s, 2021 Title V Lifetime Achievement Award.