Jeannette Ickovics

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Jeannette R. Ickovics is an American health and social psychologist. She is the Herman Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health and a Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She has also served as Chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health, Founding Director of CARE (Community Alliance for Research and Engagement), and Dean of Faculty at Yale-NUS College in Singapore from 2018 to 2021.

What she studies
- How biological, behavioral, social, and psychological factors affect health.
- Topics include maternal-child health, mental health, the health impacts of climate change, and how to prevent chronic disease through cross-sector approaches.
- She has led NIH training programs aimed at improving prevention research, with a focus on HIV risk reduction.

Key achievements
- She has published more than 200 peer‑reviewed articles and has received several honors, including the Strickland‑Daniel Mentoring Award from the American Psychological Association, and she is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

CenteringPregnancy and group prenatal care
- Ickovics helped create standardized curricula for group prenatal care and led the first randomized trials of CenteringPregnancy.
- CenteringPregnancy is now used in more than 500 clinical settings.
- Research shows benefits such as lower rates of preterm birth and low birth weight, less neonatal intensive care use, better maternal mental health, higher breastfeeding rates, and healthier pregnancy weight gain.
- The model has been especially beneficial for refugees, teens, military families, and high‑risk pregnant women, helping reduce health disparities.

CARE and community work
- Co‑founded CARE, which works with neighborhoods to run community-based health interventions.
- In partnership with New Haven Public Schools and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, CARE helped conduct a randomized trial showing that school policies can reduce obesity risk and improve health and academic outcomes.

Education
- Ickovics studied at Muhlenberg College and George Washington University and has long been affiliated with Yale University.

Awards and recognition
- Beyond the Strickland‑Daniel Mentoring Award, she is a Fellow of major psychology and behavioral medicine associations, recognizing her contributions to research and public health.

Impact
- Her work on group prenatal care has influenced health practices and policy, improving outcomes for mothers and babies and helping to reduce health inequities.
- Her community-based research with CARE demonstrates how local programs and school policies can improve health and learning outcomes for youth.