Annotation: The Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies is a non-profit organization working to promote and protect the health of pregnant women, infants and young children up to age five through research, education and service. The center researches maternal and child health issues to determine effective programs and strategies for health promotion and performs data collection and analysis on the status and quality of maternal and child health care services. Services to professionals include consultation and technical assistance in developing, implementing, and evaluating maternal and child health programs, policies, and delivery systems. Leadership development, education, and training are also available. Program and projects (some with public and/or private partners) are aimed at improving health care for mothers and children and support efforts such as home visiting, birthing centers, home birth assistant programs, community medical homes, Head Start and foster care. The National Friendly Access Project, focused on improving the quality of service in delivering perinatal health care to vulnerable populations, specifically addresses the Healthy People 2010 objectives in the areas of access to quality preventive, primary and prenatal care.
Keywords: Access to health care, Access to prenatal care, Child health, Evaluation, Health care utilization, Health education, Infant health, Maternal health, Policy analysis, Pregnant women, Technical assistance, Training, Young children