A person’s health is dependent upon the interaction of one’s biologic attributes with one’s social and physical environments. The purpose of this commentary is to provide our collective opinion about how integration of biologic and social determinants of health in pregnancy can lead to “personalized” care and improved outcomes for the mother and her baby. We have based our opinion on our experience with a transdisciplinary research effort to predict and consequently, prevent preterm birth (PTB). 1 Our fundamental concept is that the disposition of a pregnant woman should be viewed simultaneously from multiple perspectives. What is seen depends upon the specific observational tools themselves as well as upon the various measures that result from their applications. While this usually reflects the conceptual framework and the expertise of different observers, it also can skew the effort towards a single perspective. Traditionally, medicine has been divided into disciplines, reflecting several perspectives—a situation that is also true of the sciences. With respect to pregnancy health, personalized medicine offers a promise of designing preventions and therapies that take advantage of the integration of a variety of observations, not just exclusively of only one, that relate to a particular pregnancy. This offers a “personalized” means of understanding the health disposition and life trajectory of any individual pregnant woman and her offspring. In contrast, observers, who focus solely on any singular domain, may fail to capture fully this complex relationship. Current clinical approaches to the prevention of PTB include risk assessment such as by detecting a short cervix by ultrasonography 2 and interventions such as 17-OH progesterone, 3 and lowdose aspirin, 4 but these have been met with limited success in preventing PTB overall. For example, in a recent trial of low-dose aspirin given to nulliparous women with a singleton pregnancy, the intervention reduced PTB before 37 weeks of gestation significantly, but only from 13.1 to 11.6%(relative risk (RR): 0.89; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.81, 0.98); p= 0.012). Clinical interventions are limited because we do not completely understand the complex pathogenesis of PTB and because we are unable to predict which women will respond to a specific intervention. The limited benefits of current clinical care therefore call out for a more personalized approach. Studying PTB (delivery before 37 weeks’ completed gestation) can be used as an example for the potential of integrating many of these observational domains 5 since it is a complex human condition. 6, 7 Such a model would allow the prediction of disease occurrence and guide effective, preventive and therapeutic interventions. To a greater extent, it would also offer a more comprehensive understanding of the complex causes of health disparities of women 8 and offspring that have roots both in their ancestry 9, 10 and in their current social and/or physical environments. 8, 11 We propose that no disease should be categorized solely in terms of biologic or social determinants if we are to gain a full understanding of its etiology, even when the concept of social determinants includes a set of broad environmental factors. Understanding the complex interrelationship between biologic and social factors may be facilitated by complex mathematical algorithms. The application of innovative computational techniques is revolutionizing the practice of medicine, but is also exposing the arbitrary limitations of relying just on a single disciplinary approach. 12 In fact, personalized medicine requires such a systems-based approach to the understanding of maternal and child …