 
Michael B. Bracken |
Bliss Professorship in Public Health
Michael B. Bracken, the newly appointed Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Public Health, specializes in the epidemiology of diseases of pregnant women and newborns and has also been instrumental in developing successful therapies for acute spinal cord injuries.
Bracken combines these two interests in his research and as director of both the Yale Perinatal Epidemiology Unit and the National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study. The former, which he has led since 1979, conducts research in obstetric, perinatal and neonatal disease. The latter, which Bracken has overseen since 1977, conducts randomized trials of therapies for preventing paralysis after spinal cord injury.
Some of Bracken's work in the area of perinatal and neonatal diseases is focused on environmental risk factors for disease. He has edited two books, "Perinatal Epidemiology" and "Effective Care of the Newborn Infant" (with J.C. Sinclair). He has authored hundreds of articles, in which he has explored such issues as the associations between prescribed drug use in pregnancy and congenital malformations, of maternal caffeine intake on fetal growth and of maternal cigarette smoking and preterm delivery. He has also examined decision-making regarding abortion and pregnancy, and risk factors for newborns' low birth weight, among others.
Bracken and his colleagues identified the first successful therapy for acute spinal trauma in 1990. His articles in this area have examined the effectiveness and timing of the drugs methylprednisolone and naloxone in treating spinal trauma and the effectiveness of surgery in treating spinal cord injuries in combination with drug therapies.
A native of England, Bracken was educated at the University of Bristol and the University of London before earning three Yale degrees: a M.P.H. in health education in 1970, a M.Phil. in epidemiology in 1971 and a Ph.D. in epidemiology in 1974. He joined the Yale faculty in 1971 and became a full professor in epidemiology and obstretrics and gynecology in 1986. Since 1997, he has also been a professor of neurology and has held a joint appointment at the Graduate School.
The Yale researcher has been honored with a National Rehabilitation Week Research Award, the Wakeman Award for Neuroscience Research and the L.W. Freeman Award from the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, among others.
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