You are receiving this email as a subscriber to the Mother-Child Health International Research Network newsletter.

http://www.mother-child.org

Here's what's new on the Network:

Contest - Win Journal subscriptions to prestigious medical journals!

Thanks to the generosity of our partners, the MCHIRN has teamed up with several medical journals around the world to help stimulate interaction and activity on the Mother-Child website.

The journals available as prizes at present are:

• British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (online)
• Journal of Pediatrics
• Lancet
• Lancet Infectious Diseases
• Archives of Disease in Childhood

How can you earn these journal subscriptions? Simple - you just need to use the website by posting content and commenting on other people's entries. You'll earn rewards - called 'M-C points' - every time you contribute to the website. At the end date of the contest - May 31st - we will tabulate all the points, announce the winners, and register you for a one-year subscription to the journal of your choice!

You can earn M-C points simply by continuing to use the website as you normally would - you don't need to do anything different. Here are some examples of things you can do on the website, and the amount of points you earn from them:

• Post a forum topic: 15 points
• Comment on a forum topic, blog entry or other topic: 10 points
• Uploading an image: 10 points
• Posting an audio file: 50 points
• Posting a new blog entry: 25 point
• Submitting an event: 15 points
• Inviting a friend to the website: 5 points - and 40 (!) bonus points when that
  user registers!

For help and advice on how to do any of the above, check out our revamped "How-to" section by clicking here. We'll walk you through the steps to post a blog entry, forum event or even an audio podcast! You'll also get some ideas for the kind of content and articles that we're looking for, as well as privacy information about how we protect your data.

You can always see your points on your Account page by clicking on "My
Account" in your user menu, and you can also view a listing "wall" with
the highest scoring users on it by clicking on "Users by points" in your user menu when logged in.

http://www.mother-child.org/en/user/login

Mini-documentary of the Kangaroo Program in Bogotá, Colombia

Just recently, the Mother-Child team visited the Kangaroo Program in Bogotá, Colombia. We had the chance to speak directly with mothers and family members about their thoughts on the project, as well as get information from the workers at the San Ignacio hospital. Dr Nathalie Charpak - a registered member on the Mother-Child Network - also talked about her views on the progress of the program around the world.

The Mother-Child Network is hoping to create more of these multimedia spotlights on various projects that our members are undertaking around the world. If you are put of an innovative projects related to Mother-Child health and would like to help promote and popularize it using rich media and the web, let us know.

Click here for the photo gallery from the Kangaroo Centre – video coming in the next few days!

Website Update

We've revised our website based on your feedback - thank you! Ease of use, design, and the entire interface have all been improved. Please let us know what you think.

Three of the principal new features on the website are the Podcasts, Groups and Forums. As you might have noticed above, we're expanding the website to give Mother-Child Health researchers more flexibility in how they want to interact, share and communicate with their peers. So, in addition to the group weblog, we're also providing the facilities for you to create your own private working groups, create audio podcasts to share your thoughts with others, and participate in an open forum for topics that you might not feel deserve their own blog entry, but on which you'd still like feedback from other users.

All of the new sections of the website are explain in detail in our help section here. We also provide you with instructions on how to stay up-to-date with what's happening on the website when you're not around, and what everyone else is talking about. This makes it easier for you to stay on top of new developments and comment on someone else's post.

For any question or comments, please use the contact form on the website, or write to questions@mother-child.org.

- The Mother-Child Health International Research Network Team

*****************************************

Mother-Child Health

http://www.childhoodobesity.info/

Welcome to the second Mother-Child Health International Research Network newsletter!

This monthly published MCHIRN newsletter is the official publication of the Mother-Child Network.

What's new:

Listen to an audio interview with Dr. Richard Hamilton on the Mother-Child Health International Research Network:
http://mother-child.org/podcasts/2007/nov/05/0835/mother_child_network_i...

Our website has been up and running in its current form for about 2 years. With close to 200 confirmed, verified Mother-Child Health scientists, divided equally between developed and developing countries, we are well on our way to achieving a critical mass of researchers registered on the site and building the largest open, peer-to-peer database of Mother-Child Health researchers in the world.

In pediatric terms, the baby has arrived and it is well but will it find a job? Our answer is “yes” but we have a way to go. One measure of website activity comes from our weblog system where “blog” traffic is sluggish, in the same way that a proportion of members of a “bricks and mortar” research institute fail to participate in seminars. Experience with other network websites suggests that about 15% of subscribers can be expected to engage in active participation. We expect to do better than that but probably will need at least another 200 registrants to build an active website.

We remain committed to the concept of an electronic network as a cost-effective device to foster relevant productive maternal and child health research, particularly in low-income countries. To accelerate progress toward our goal, we have:

1.Set up our first distance learning project, a workshop on “How to write a successful research grant application.” Details can be found on the www.mother-child.org website.

2.Launched a competition to reward our most active bloggers with a free journal subscription. We will provide more information on this shortly, but the idea is that "points" will be awarded for writing blog posts, comments, posting events, and generally interacting with the website. The most active members will receive free journal subscriptions, and points are retroactive.

If you've lost your password, you can ask for a new one by clicking on this link and entering your email address to request a new password:

http://www.mother-child.org/en/user/password

Once logged into the MCHIRN community, you will see a user menu from which you can access various areas of the site, browse other users and writings, and use other tools.

The Mother-Child Health International Research Network is based on the belief that:
1.A relevant health research base and a local community of engaged scientists are key assets for generating and sustaining improved health care.
2.The quality of maternal and child health in most low-income countries lags far behind that of high income countries as does the level of local research activity.
3.These days, most successful health research requires the involvement of specialized teams of scientists and sophisticated technologies. Institutions in high-income countries, at great expense, have brought critical masses of health scientists, together with centralized shared technology, to exert a remarkable impact on health research and, as a consequence, health care. Such research institutes are extremely rare in low-income countries
4.So a critical barrier to developing a badly needed health research base in most developing regions is the scientific isolation faced by aspiring scientists working where research centers and institutes are beyond their country’s means.

It is unlikely that new health research institutes can be built in low-income countries on a scale required to meet the enormous needs. We have proposed that an innovative participatory electronic communication facility be created in an attempt to address this scientific isolation issue. To this end, www.Mother-Child.org is being developed for the Mother and Child Health International Research Network at a minute fraction of the cost of a single actual “bricks and mortar” institute..

Now our task is to build participation in the website to a level where we can evaluate its impact on Maternal and Child Health scientists, on their productivity, and eventually on maternal and child health. We envision a virtual research institute which will facilitate critical discussion, mutual support and collaborative ventures in research and research training in many regions of the Developing World.

It is particularly important now that we receive your feedback and suggestions for improving the website and its performance. To provide your opinions we will soon provide you with a feedback form you can use to give us your feedback on the website.

We thank you for your participation and look forward to bigger and better things from the website in the future!

Welcome to the second Mother-Child Health International Research Network newsletter!

This monthly published MCHIRN newsletter is the official publication of the Mother-Child Network.

What's new:

Listen to an audio interview with Dr. Richard Hamilton on the Mother-Child Health International Research Network:
http://mother-child.org/podcasts/2007/nov/05/0835/mother_child_network_i...

Our website has been up and running in its current form for about 2 years. With close to 200 confirmed, verified Mother-Child Health scientists, divided equally between developed and developing countries, we are well on our way to achieving a critical mass of researchers registered on the site and building the largest open, peer-to-peer database of Mother-Child Health researchers in the world.

In pediatric terms, the baby has arrived and it is well but will it find a job? Our answer is “yes” but we have a way to go. One measure of website activity comes from our weblog system where “blog” traffic is sluggish, in the same way that a proportion of members of a “bricks and mortar” research institute fail to participate in seminars. Experience with other network websites suggests that about 15% of subscribers can be expected to engage in active participation. We expect to do better than that but probably will need at least another 200 registrants to build an active website.

We remain committed to the concept of an electronic network as a cost-effective device to foster relevant productive maternal and child health research, particularly in low-income countries. To accelerate progress toward our goal, we have:

1.Set up our first distance learning project, a workshop on “How to write a successful research grant application.” Details can be found on the www.mother-child.org website.

2.Launched a competition to reward our most active bloggers with a free journal subscription. We will provide more information on this shortly, but the idea is that "points" will be awarded for writing blog posts, comments, posting events, and generally interacting with the website. The most active members will receive free journal subscriptions, and points are retroactive.

If you've lost your password, you can ask for a new one by clicking on this link and entering your email address to request a new password:

http://www.mother-child.org/en/user/password

Once logged into the MCHIRN community, you will see a user menu from which you can access various areas of the site, browse other users and writings, and use other tools.

The Mother-Child Health International Research Network is based on the belief that:
1.A relevant health research base and a local community of engaged scientists are key assets for generating and sustaining improved health care.
2.The quality of maternal and child health in most low-income countries lags far behind that of high income countries as does the level of local research activity.
3.These days, most successful health research requires the involvement of specialized teams of scientists and sophisticated technologies. Institutions in high-income countries, at great expense, have brought critical masses of health scientists, together with centralized shared technology, to exert a remarkable impact on health research and, as a consequence, health care. Such research institutes are extremely rare in low-income countries
4.So a critical barrier to developing a badly needed health research base in most developing regions is the scientific isolation faced by aspiring scientists working where research centers and institutes are beyond their country’s means.

It is unlikely that new health research institutes can be built in low-income countries on a scale required to meet the enormous needs. We have proposed that an innovative participatory electronic communication facility be created in an attempt to address this scientific isolation issue. To this end, www.Mother-Child.org is being developed for the Mother and Child Health International Research Network at a minute fraction of the cost of a single actual “bricks and mortar” institute..

Now our task is to build participation in the website to a level where we can evaluate its impact on Maternal and Child Health scientists, on their productivity, and eventually on maternal and child health. We envision a virtual research institute which will facilitate critical discussion, mutual support and collaborative ventures in research and research training in many regions of the Developing World.

It is particularly important now that we receive your feedback and suggestions for improving the website and its performance. To provide your opinions we will soon provide you with a feedback form you can use to give us your feedback on the website.

We thank you for your participation and look forward to bigger and better things from the website in the future!