MaryCatherine Arbour, MD, MPH
Dr. Arbour is a physician anthropologist who implements and evaluates interdisciplinary interventions to promote child development globally, using a combination of experimental, ethnographic and quality improvement methodologies. She has particular interests in methods for adapting evidence-based practices across diverse contexts and populations, and in scale.
Dr. Arbour’s expertise includes adapting continuous quality improvement methods (CQI) to a diversity of disciplines and contexts to improve clinical, public health and education outcomes. She leads integration of CQI methods in:
• the US Department of Maternal and Child Health’s first national quality improvement collaborative for home visiting services (HV CoIIN, Home Visiting Collaboration for Improvement and Innovation Network),
• the adaptation and spread of Project DULCE, an intervention to address social determinants of health and promote understanding of healthy development among families with infants 0 to 6 months in pediatric clinics in 3 states,
• a community-level collaboration aimed at improving child development in two high-poverty neighborhoods in NYC
• a school-based intervention to improve children’s health and learning in public preschools in Chile (Un Buen Comienzo, A Good Start), conducted as a cluster-randomized trial in a first phase (2008-2011) and quasi-experimental design in a latter expansion (2011-present).
She has led quality improvement capacity-building efforts, formal curriculum development and delivery with professionals, paraprofessionals and community members. She co-designed and teaches the DOHVE CQI practicum for MIECHV state leads.
Dr. Arbour holds a BA in Biological Anthropology from Swarthmore College, an MD from Harvard Medical School and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.