A cadre of endowed professorships will continue to recruit top flight leaders and researchers to The Chiles Center to carry out our mission of establishing and maintaining cutting-edge research and teaching programs in the area of maternal and child health.

Maternal and Child Health Policy
Chiles Center researchers propose policy and legislation based on proven, tested, population-based interventions to ensure quality health care in the future. For instance, this research team currently is studying universal insurance coverage for pregnant women and their babies, and will be able to provide lawmakers with solid data on the outcomes and cost-effectiveness of such coverage.

Infant Health and Development
This research teams focuses attention on interventions like prenatal literacy testing for mothers and family members, as well as studying behavioral problems in pregnancy (substance abuse, battering, smoking and sexually transmitted diseases) and their long-term effects on brain development and school performance.

Mother and Infant Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention
The Chiles Center's primary goals in this area are (1) to perform clinical trials of anti-addiction drugs geared toward mothers, (2) perform cross-testing and evaluations of smoking cessation programs in pregnancy, and (3) develop national and international mother and infant tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse prevention programs.

Mother and Infant Health: Epidemiology of Disease and Injuries
These researchers are studying issues surrounding this country's epidemic of unintended pregnancies and will test successful interventions. The team will track the long-term effects of pregnancy problems on child development and education.

Mother and Infant Safety, Justice and Ethics
This professorship will help The Chiles Center evaluate and propose policy in such areas as (1) encouraging employers to improve quality insurance coverage for pregnant employees; (2) developing better methods of teaching women the elements of quality health care for themselves and their children; (3) researching strategies to reduce the number of cesarean births; (4) reporting on discrimination in offering of interventions (i.e. withholding anesthesia from women unable to pay); and examining the ethics and justice of "in utero child abuse."