Information Resources
Cost Effectiveness and Cost-Benefit Analysis in MCH 
Resource Brief
This resource brief provides current, high-quality resources about cost effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis in Maternal and Child Health (MCH). These two economic evaluation techniques are used to examine the costs of interventions relative to the benefits that they produce, either the costs and consequences of competing interventions for a given client group within a given budget or the costs of a policy or program over time compared to improvements in health expressed in monetary (dollar) terms. In addition, the brief provides links to discussions of effective programs and evidence-based practices that achieve health and wellness goals but that are not analyzed in terms of costs for the benefits achieved.
National Training Institute for Child Care Health Consultants
Program Materials
These materials are from a National Healthy Child Care America Cooperative Agreement Program, MCHB-funded from 1997-2013, a train-the-trainer program to address the needs of child care health consultants. The modules and toolkits cover topics including building consulting skills, building curricula development skills, environmental health, child maltreatment, caring for children with special health care needs, quality in child care, staff health, and others.
Protecting All Children's Teeth: Oral Health in Adolescence
Modules Curriculum
Protecting All Children's Teeth (PACT) was created by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Oral Health Initiative to educate medical students, residents, pediatric primary care providers, and others interested in infant, child, and adolescent health about the importance of oral health in overall health. The curriculum provides in depth coverage of child oral health, oral health guidance, and preventive care to increase comfort in recognizing dental disease and conditions and communicate with dental professionals. The 13 modules of the PACT training program comprehensively address oral health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of oral health disease in children.
Georgetown National Center for Cultural Competence New Data Vignette: Carol and John
The Georgetown National Center for Cultural Competence is pleased to announce that there is an addition to the Data Vignettes web feature. These Data Vignettes were developed by the National Center for Cultural Competence to put faces and names to the data from the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. The stories are composites from many families and do not represent any specific family or child. They can be used for personal learning and development or to augment curricula and training activities for health care providers, policy makers, public health professionals, researchers and agency staff. Each vignette contains links to additional resources related to concepts discussed and a set of questions for discussion. The new vignette about Carol and John looks at the life course of a family and how intergenerational issues can affect the outcomes of a child with special health care needs.
The Cultural and Linguistic Competence Checklists for MCH Training Programs
The Georgetown National Center for Cultural Competence (NCCC) is pleased to announce a new addition to the series of checklists for MCH Training programs. This new addition focuses on cultural and linguistic competence in the curricula of MCH training programs. The Cultural and Linguistic Competence Checklists for MCH Training Programs was developed by the NCCC with input from an expert MCH faculty workgroup to assess cultural and linguistic competence within the MCH Training Program. Each checklist addresses a different aspect of the infrastructure, function, policy, and practice of training programs. The checklists are not designed to measure the cultural and linguistic competence of a given program; rather, they provide a structure for discussion and self-examination to facilitate programmatic and organizational change.
Protecting Adolescent Confidentiality Under Health Care Reform: The Special Case Regarding Explanation of Benefits (EOBs)
Report
This report, by NAHIC’s Claire Brindis along with the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center and ICF International, highlights key issues with EOBs and sensitive health services, and discusses how these issues are impacted by the Affordable Care Act. It explores a number of strategies to balance the need of confidentiality with patient communication, and provides insights offered through interviews with experts on the subject.
Supporting Nursing Moms at Work: Employer Solutions
Online Resource
This online resource provides businesses with cost-effective tips and solutions to assist businesses in supporting breastfeeding women at work. These solutions can be viewed by industry to find solutions appropriate for workplaces ranging from agricultural to mining to retail and other. The resource also includes common solutions, such as examples of spaces for nursing mothers and types of education and professional support.
Monitoring the Development and Health of Young Children
Publication
The spring 2014 issue of the Northwest Bulletin, "Monitoring the Development and Health of Young Children," is now available. This issue focuses on developmental screening for young children. It is the first of a two-part series: the fall issue will focus on developmental screening for school-aged children and adolescents. This issue includes an editorial by Dr. David Willis, director of the Division of Home Visiting and Early Childhood Services, MCHB, on the state of developmental screening nationally; an overview of current developmental screening recommendations and tolls by Dr. Katherine A. TeKolste, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at the University of Washington School of Medicine; an article on the importance of screening for maternal depression by Wendy Davis, PhD, executive director of Postpartum Support International; and others.
Training and Educational Resources: Webinars
Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome – Strategies for States and Health Plans
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
1:30pm EDT
With the epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse and related increase in heroin dependence, the health system is facing an alarming rise in neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). NAS afflicts newborns exposed to drugs, most commonly opioids, while in utero. These infants may experience withdrawal symptoms like vomiting, weight loss, hypersensitivity to light and sound, seizures, and potential long-term developmental effects. Between 2000 and 2009 NAS incidence tripled, stirring the public and private health sectors to find better ways to identify and treat pregnant women struggling with addiction. This webinar will highlight strategies for preventing and treating neonatal abstinence syndrome. Speakers will discuss recent trends in opioid abuse and NAS, the impact of rising NAS rates across the states, a health plan-led initiative to improve care coordination and social support for pregnant women in treatment for addiction, and the latest in NAS treatments.
Who’s Leading the Leading Health Indicators? – Substance Abuse Webinar
Thursday, July 24, 2014
12:00pm to 1:00pm EDT
Although progress has been made in substantially lowering rates of abuse of some substances, the use of mind- and behavior-altering substances continues to take a major toll on the health of individuals, families, and communities nationwide. Substance abuse—involving drugs, alcohol, or both—is associated with a range of destructive social conditions, including family disruptions, financial problems, lost productivity, failure in school, injuries, domestic violence, child abuse, and crime. This presentation, part of the Healthy People 2020 feature Who’s Leading the Leading Health Indicators? Series, will present how one organization is working to reduce the number of adolescents using alcohol or illicit drugs.
Funding Opportunities
HRSA – Alliance for Innovation on MCH: Cooperative Agreement Expanding Access to Care for the MCH Population
July 28, 2014
This announcement solicits applications for the Alliance for Innovation on MCH: Cooperative Agreement Expanding Access to Care for the MCH Population, which is comprised of two categories of award. This is an MCHB collaborative program of awardee organizations and the MCHB for the purpose of expanding access to care for the MCH populations through the following program focus areas:
- Ensuring continuity of coverage and care for pregnant women and children;
- Improving systems of care for children with special health care needs; and
- Promoting the use of Bright Futures Guidelines for all children.
This program will support organizations in addressing issues facing MCH populations and in raising awareness about best practices in health and social programs. Specifically, under this program, each awardee will be responsible for carrying out activities tailored to its target audience. Two categories of awards are available:
Notah Begay III Foundation – Promising Program Grant
July 14, 2014
The Notah Begay III Foundation (NB3F)’s national program, Native Strong: Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures is pleased to announce its 2014 Promising Program Grant Request for Proposals (RFP). The purpose of the Promising Program Grant will be to partner with Native communities to support projects that strategically target childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes prevention through existing youth-focused physical activity and/or healthy nutrition programs. Recipients of these grants are currently implementing programs for youth that increase physical activity and get kids moving while providing a safe place to play and/or support healthy nutrition programs that can include nutrition education and/or increasing access to healthy and affordable foods. The Promising Program Grant will give priority to proposals that show strong potential to strengthen their existing program, readiness to build their capacity to evaluate their programs and demonstrate strong potential to share promising outcomes and best practices. Grants will be awarded up to $40,000 each. Applications will be accepted from throughout the U.S. However preference will be given to grantees from three specific regions – the Southwest (New Mexico, Arizona), the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin) and the Southern Plains (Oklahoma, Texas).
HRSA – Promoting Preventive Health Services for Women
July 21, 2014
The purpose of this initiative is to improve women’s health across the lifecourse by increasing the use of clinical preventive services. This will be accomplished by: Increasing the number of women enrolled in health insurance; raising consumer awareness of the importance of clinical preventive services; and supporting providers in the delivery of quality preventive services. These objectives will be accomplished by a coalition of organizations representing women’s health care providers who will: develop and implement strategies to assist uninsured women in obtaining health insurance coverage; develop and implement strategies to promote awareness among consumers about the importance of clinical preventive services; and provide information and training to providers to support the quality provision of these services.
AAP – CATCH Planning, Implementation, and Resident Grants
July 31, 2014
The AAP’s Community Access To Child Health (CATCH) program supports pediatricians to collaborate within their communities so that all children have access to needed health services and a medical home. For the Planning and Implementation grants, up to $10,000 will be awarded on a competitive basis to individual pediatricians and fellowship trainees to plan innovative community-based child health initiatives that will ensure all children have medical homes and access to health care services not otherwise available in their community. Priority is given to projects that will be serving communities with the greatest health disparities. For the Resident grants, up to $2,000 will be awarded on a competitive basis for pediatric residents to plan and/or implement community-based child health initiatives. Projects must include planning activities or demonstrate completed planning activities, and may include implementation activities.
NIH – Pharmacogenetics, Pharmacoepigenetics and Personalized Medicine in Children
September 5, 2014 (Letter of Intent)
The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to encourage pharmacogenetic and epigenetic studies and improved phenotyping in children’s pharmacotherapy that will allow individualization of treatment in children.
NIH –Global “Omics” Approaches Targeting Adverse Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes Utilizing Existing Cohorts
October 7, 2014
The purpose of this FOA is to invite applications utilizing state of the science “Omics” technologies (such as genomics epigenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics), coupled to powerful bioinformatics tools, to target important pregnancy and neonatal health problems by using existing cohorts. Letter of intent due 30 days before the application due date.
NIH – Innovative Therapies and Tools for Screenable Disorders in Newborns
October 16, 2014 (R03, R21)
November 5, 2014 (R01)
This FOA encourages applications from organizations that propose research relevant to the basic understanding and development of therapeutic interventions for currently screened conditions and “high priority” genetic conditions for which screening could be possible in the near future. In this FOA, a “high priority” condition is one for which the development of an efficacious therapy would make the condition amenable to newborn screening. Letters of intent are due 30 days before the application due date.
NIH – Multidisciplinary and Collaborative Research Consortium to Reduce Oral Health Disparities in Children
December 9, 2014
The overall goal of this initiative is to establish effective interventions or programs to reduce or eliminate oral health disparities and inequalities in vulnerable U.S. children who are 0–21 years of age. Multidisciplinary teams of investigators will refine and test an intervention or evaluate outcomes of an existing program or policy intended to reduce health disparities and inequalities. Community engagement and other partnerships are essential for the holistic, multilevel approaches required by this FOA. This research is intended to lead to identification, validation, dissemination and implementation of effective approaches to prevent disease or facilitate treatments, helping to reduce and ultimately eliminate oral health disparities and inequalities in children. Two funding vehicles for this project will run in parallel. Letter of intent due 30 days before application due date.
- Research project to create a data coordinating center (U01)
- Research project for planning, feasibility testing, and developing study documents, including the study protocol and Manual of Procedures (UH2/UH3)
NIH – Improving Diabetes Management in Young Children with Type 1 Diabetes
March 18, 2015
The goal of this FOA is to support research to develop, refine, and pilot test innovative strategies to improve diabetes management in young children with type 1 diabetes (5 years old and under). At the end of the funding period, there should be a well-developed and well-characterized intervention that has been demonstrated to be safe, feasible to implement, acceptable in the target population, and, if promising, ready to be tested in a larger efficacy trial. Letter of intent due 30 days before application due date.