We conduct and fund research that scientists, medical and public health professionals, and policy makers use to advance the health and well-being of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) populations.
Our office has two divisions:
Division of Epidemiology (DOE)
- Funds and directs the National Survey of Children’s Health
- Provides training and resources to build the skills of data users and MCH epidemiologists and advance the use of data in public health decision-making
Division of Research (DOR)
- Funds research to identify and test new approaches to improve maternal and child health
- Builds and strengthens systems to pilot, share, and expand proven solutions to meet the health and health care needs of mothers and children
Key accomplishments
Broadly, we advance the health of MCH populations through:
Child health surveys
- Funding and directing the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), an annual household survey of children’s health and well-being. The NSCH is the largest survey of children’s health in the United States, providing national- and state-level data on key child health indicators, including:
- Prevalence of more than 25 diagnosed physical, mental, emotional, and developmental conditions
- Access to high-quality health care in a medical home
- Presence and impact of special health care needs
- School readiness and other measures of child well-being
- Funding and designing the NSCH Longitudinal Cohort (NSCH-LC) fielded in 2023–2024 to follow up with households that responded to either the 2018 or 2019 NSCH. The NSCH-LC is designed to provide data on changes in health outcomes and related experiences of children and their families over time.
- Partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau to sponsor content on the Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey (HTOPS), to monitor children's mental health and child care problems.
Building MCH epidemiological capacity
- Graduate Student Epidemiology Program (GSEP)
- Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Epidemiology Training Course
- Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Epidemiology Doctoral Training
- Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Epidemiology Conference
- Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health
- Strengthen the Evidence for Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Programs
- Engaging Research Innovation and Challenges (EnRICH) webinar series
Funding research
We have funded over 400 awardees since 2000 through:
- Maternal Health Research Collaborative for Minority-Serving Institutions (MH-RC-MSI)
- MCHB Research Consortia (RC) focused on maternal and child health, and autism and other developmental disabilities
- MCH and Autism Research Networks (RN)
- Autism Single Investigator Innovation Program (Autism SIIP)
- MCH and Autism Field-Initiated Innovation Research Studies (FIRST)
- MCH and Autism Secondary Data Analysis Research Studies (SDAR)
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