Name: Jude Van Buren, RN, MPH, DrPH
Position: Manager, Assessment Section in the Office of Maternal and Child Health
Organization: Washington state Department of Health
Year graduated from UW DEH: 1984
Degree: BS
Program: Undergraduate

Jude Van Buren has worked in the fields of public and environmental health for more than 25 years as a midwife and public health nurse, environmental scientist, environmental specialist, epidemiologist, toxicologist, and professor of environmental health sciences at The Evergreen State College.

She entered the Department of Environmental Health after a tour with the Peace Corps, where she worked in sanitation and developed an international health background. At the time, she had an Associate Degree in Nursing. After completing her Bachelor of Science degree at the UW, she worked for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and later for the states of Maryland and Washington in environmental health.

She went on to obtain a Master's in Public Health and then a DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) degree in Environmental Health Sciences from The Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Her research has included work in childhood lead poisoning and later in waterborne disease agents.

She returned to Washington, where she manages the Assessment Section in the Office of Maternal and Child Health at the Washington state Department of Health. She directs a statewide surveillance system of perinatal health (from five months before to a month after birth) and oversees an office of 13 researchers in maternal and child health.

Her section surveys new mothers in Washington state to analyze pregnancy risks (the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) survey, a population-based surveillance system sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and the state). Her researchers also gather information on deaths of children in the state to determine if the death was preventable and what strategies could be used to prevent similar deaths in the future.

For more information: http://www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/mch/

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