This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting. (March 2022) ( Learn how and when to remove this message)

Jeannette R. Ickovics is an American health and social psychologist.  She is the inaugural Samuel and Liselotte Herman Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health and Professor of Psychology at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University.

Previously, Ickovics was the Founding Chair of the Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health and the Founding Director of Community Alliance for Research and Engagement (CARE). She served as the Dean of Faculty at Yale-NUS College in Singapore from 2018 to 2021. Her research investigates the interplay of biomedical, behavioural, social and psychological factors that influence individual and community health. She has worked in the areas of maternal-child health, mental health, the health impacts of climate change, and multi-sector approaches to chronic disease prevention. She has also led a US National Institutes of Health training grant intended to advance prevention research, with a focus on HIV risk reduction.

Ickovics is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, ^[1] and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Strickland-Daniel Mentoring Award from the American Psychological Association. ^[2] She is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and the American Psychological Association.

Ickovics and her colleagues developed, implemented and evaluated the first standardized curricula for group prenatal care and published the first randomized controlled trials of CenteringPregnancy, now implemented in more than 500 clinical settings [1-2]. This research has been cited as foundational for group prenatal care with special populations such as refugees, teens, military populations, pregnant women with chronic diseases including diabetes and HIV, and high-risk pregnant women – especially Black women – with a focus on reducing racial and health disparities [3-4]. Further research has found that group prenatal care is associated with a lower prevalence of preterm birth, low birthweight, and neonatal intensive care utilization [5-10], along with higher levels of maternal mental health, breastfeeding, and optimal pregnancy weight gain and postpartum weight loss, among other factors [10-16].

In addition, Ickovics has made substantial contributions to understanding the influence of the social and environmental factors that contribute to poor health outcomes. CARE (Community Alliance for Research and Engagement), cofounded by Ickovics, works directly with neighborhood residents to conduct collaborative interventions to improve community health. For example, in partnership with the New Haven Public Schools and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, they conducted a randomized controlled trial documenting how school-based policies could reduce risk and improve outcomes related to obesity, chronic disease and academic achievement [19-20].

1.      Ickovics JR, Lewis JB, Cunningham SD, et al. Transforming prenatal care: Multidisciplinary team science improves a broad range of maternal-child outcomes. American Psychologist. 2019; 19:120. doi: 10.1186/s12884-019-2256-0. PMID 31023259

2.      Rising SS, Quimby C. The CenteringPregnancy model: The power of group healthcare. New York: Springer; 2017.

3.       Carter EB, Temming LA, Akin J, et al. Group prenatal care compared with traditional prenatal care: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2016;128(3):551-561.

4.       Byerley BM, Haas DM. A systematic overview of the literature regarding group prenatal care for high-risk pregnant women. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 2017;17(1):329.

5.       Cunningham SD, Lewis JB, Shebl FM, et al. Group prenatal care reduces risk of preterm birth and low birth weight: A matched cohort study. Journal of Women's Health. 2019;28(1):17-22.

6.       Ickovics JR, Kershaw TS, Westdahl C, et al. Group prenatal care and perinatal outcomes: A randomized controlled trial. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2007;110(2 Pt 1):330-339.

7.       Gareau S, Lòpez-De Fede A, Loudermilk BL, et al. Group prenatal care results in Medicaid savings with better outcomes: A propensity score analysis of CenteringPregnancy participation in South Carolina. Maternal & Child Health Journal. 2016;20(7):1384-1393.

8.       Crockett AH, Heberlein EC, Smith JC, Ozluk P, Covington-Kolb S, Willis C. Effects of a multi-site expansion of group prenatal care on birth outcomes. Maternal and Child Health Journal. 2019;23(10):1424-1433.

9.       Ickovics JR, Earnshaw V, Lewis JB, et al. Cluster randomized controlled trial of group prenatal care: Perinatal outcomes among adolescents in New York City health centers. American Journal of Public Health. 2016;106(2):359-365.

10.   Felder JN, Epel E, Lewis JB, et al. Depressive symptoms and gestational length among pregnant adolescents: Cluster randomized control trial of CenteringPregnancy® Plus group prenatal care. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 2017;85(6):574-584.

11.   Ickovics JR, Reed E, Magriples U et al. Effects of group prenatal care on psychosocial risk in pregnancy: Results from a randomised controlled trial. Psychology & Health. 2011;26(2):235-250.

12.   Tubay AT, Mansalis KA, Simpson MJ, et al. The effects of group prenatal care on infant birthweight and maternal well-being: A randomized controlled trial. Military Medicine. 2019;184(5-6):e440-e446.

13.   Trotman G, Chhatre G, Darolia R, Tefera E, Damle L, Gomez-Lobo V. The effect of Centering Pregnancy versus traditional prenatal care models on improved adolescent health behaviors in the perinatal period. Journal of Pediatrics & Adolescent Gynecology. 2015;28(5):395-401.

14.   Magriples U, Boynton MH, Kershaw TS, et al. The impact of group prenatal care on pregnancy and postpartum weight trajectories. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2015;213(5):688. e681-688. e689.

15.   Kershaw TS, Magriples U, Westdahl C, Rising SS, Ickovics J. Pregnancy as a window of opportunity for HIV prevention: Effects of an HIV intervention delivered within prenatal care. American Journal of Public Health. 2009;99(11):2079-2086.

16.   DeCesare JZ, Hannah D, Amin R. Postpartum contraception use rates of patients participating in the Centering Pregnancy model of care versus traditional obstetrical care. Journal of Reproductive Medicine. 2017;62(1-2):45-49.

17.   Bromage W, Santilli A & Ickovics JR. Organizing Communities to Benefit Public Health. American Journal of Public Health. 2015;105:1965-1966. PMCID:PMC45665665.

18.   Carroll-Scott A, Rosenthal L, Gilstad-Hayden K, Ickovics JR. Disentangling Neighborhood Contextual Associations with Child Body Mass Index, Diet and Physical Activity: The Role of Built, Socioeconomic, and Social Environments. Social Science & Medicine. 2013;95:106-114. PMCID:PMC4058500

19.   Ickovics JR, Duffany KO, Shebl F, Read M, Peters S, Schwartz M. Implementing school-based policies to prevent obesity: Cluster randomized trial. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2019;56:e1-e11.

20.   Ickovics JR, Carroll-Scott A, Gilstad-Hayden K, Schwartz M, Peters S, McCaslin C. Health and Academic Achievement: Cumulative Effects of Health Assets on Standardized Test Scores among Urban Youth in the United States. Journal of School Health. 2014;84:40-48. PMCID:PMC4058503

• Link to faculty page
• Link to research lab website
• Link to published works

This biographical article related to medicine in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e