Katherine Lobach Wins Martha May Eliot Award

Katherine S. Lobach, MD, professor emerita of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., today was awarded the American Public Health Association’s 2005 Martha May Eliot Award, which honors exceptional achievements in the field of maternal and child health. Lobach received the award here during APHA’s 133 rd Annual Meeting & Exposition.

Lobach helped design and subsequently directed a children and youth project in the Bronx that from its beginning in 1966 incorporated the concepts of the medical home- and family-centered, culturally sensitive comprehensive care. The project was recognized for a number of features unusual for the time, such as a parents’ advisory committee, a playroom where developmental screening took place and books were free for the taking and a Women, Infants and Children program that promoted breastfeeding rather than formula distribution. Eventually, the project evolved into a federally funded community health center.

As a medical educator, Lobach was responsible for a unique program, required in the first-year curriculum at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, that introduced medical students to their first patients – a pregnant woman in her third trimester, seen in a clinic and the delivery room, and her infant, seen in a clinic and at home.

Lobach worked as assistant commissioner for child and adolescent health in the New York City Department of Health, where she organized and oversaw the conversion of 50 Child Health Stations from well-child clinics to providers of complete primary care. In 1994, the clinic program was a finalist in the national competition for “Innovations in Local Government” sponsored by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Ford Foundation. In 1997, it won the Primary Care Award of the Pew Commission on the Health Professions.

While at the city health department, Lobach initiated the development of New York’s citywide immunization registry, one of the first of its size. She collaborated with colleagues at Columbia University to institute state-of-the-art asthma care in all of the child health clinics and established a large-scale program that linked high-risk newborns with primary care providers and tracked their developmental progress.

Lobach is past president of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association and of New York Chapter 3 of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Dr. Lobach has a long and outstanding career as a respected physician, accomplished researcher and educator and tireless advocate in the field of maternal and child health,” said Amy J. Schwartz, MPA, executive director of the Public Health Association of New York City. “Her achievements are many.”

Said Allen Rosenfeld, MD, a former Martha May Eliot Award recipient, “Her efforts have benefited the lives of countless families and she has been a model for young professionals entering maternal and child health studies and practice.”

Founded in 1872, APHA is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. The association works to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats. APHA represents a broad array of health officials, educators, environmentalists, policy-makers and health providers at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions. More information is available at www.apha.org.

Contact: Media Relations, (202) 777-2509
media.relations@apha.org