Coronavirus Disease Response

Programs such as our Title V MCH Program, Home Visiting, and Healthy Start trained the health workforce through remote training, provided remote home visiting services, and virtual education.

Through the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, we awarded new funding that builds infrastructure for telehealth and supports training health care workers to provide high-quality service through telehealth.

States could use Title V MCH Program funds to support activities including contact tracing, testing, direct patient care, and case management. Many of our programs provided education and information to encourage vaccine uptake to pregnant women, families, and youth.

We added COVID-19-related questions to the annual National Survey of Children's Health. We partnered with the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse survey to gather data to understand the pandemic's impact on telemedicine, preventive visits, and childcare. And the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) gathered data about children's admissions to emergency departments during the pandemic.

We also initiated a longitudinal cohort study that will allow researchers to assess the long-term effects of COVID-19 on our Nation's children.

We hosted town halls, facilitated through the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP). We issued joint letters with the Administration for Children and Families and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support our partners to better meet the needs of MCH Populations.

Throughout the public health emergency, we worked to connect our grantees to other government offices' guidance and resources that involved topics such as children and youth with special health care needs, educational settings and safety, civil rights, and nutrition.