Where We Work

Place Matters

The global percentage of babies born prematurely has barely dropped in five decades—despite dozens of years of focused research into its causes and prevention. In fact, the percent of preterm births actually rose in both the United States and California in 2015, after years of little change. 

What are we missing? Where are the gaps in our understanding? How can we halt the increase in premature births and even reverse this epidemic, ultimately draw lessons from our work in California and East Africa that can be applied globally?  We believe that a focus on place is an important, missing piece.
 

"Tell me your zip code and I’ll tell you your life expectancy.” - Dr. Tony Iton

This is a truth which underscores why the notion of place pulses at the heart of our work. We plan to use such location-based insights to harness the power of precision medicine. As we discover and share how place interacts with a mother’s genome and chronic medical conditions, we can more precisely target health care to prevent or treat preterm birth in the very places where it is most prevalent.