Biomedical and Behavioral Research Innovations to Ensure Equity in Maternal and Child Health

by: Michael Saunders

The National Institutes of Health, otherwise known as the NIH, is an agency operating within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that's essentially responsible for looking after the nation's biomedical and health-related research studies.

The grants and initiatives of the NIH are all specifically tailored to help achieve its general agency mission which is to "seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce the burdens of illness and disability."

In keeping with this mission, the National Institutes of Health has recently partnered with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to establish the Biomedical and Behavioral Research Innovations to Ensure Equity (BRITE) in Maternal and Child Health Grant Program.

The program initially seeks to increase the diversity of the research who are involved in health equity research studies associated with infant mortality; Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; child, adolescent, and/or adult obesity; uterine fibroids; pediatric and maternal HIV/AIDS prevention; violence prevention; health literacy; and outreach and information dissemination.

In addition, the BRITE program also intends to kickstart maternal and child health equity research studies from institutions which are eligible for the Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) R15 program.

  (continued...)

Biomedical and Behavioral Research Innovations to Ensure Equity in Maternal and Child Health
  Page 2

About The Author Michael Saunders is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants.com one the the most comprehensive Websites offering information on government grants and federal government programs. He also maintains Websites providing resources on environmental grants and grants for youth programs.

Additional Resources

category - Health Grants

National Science Foundation's Smart Health and Wellbeing Program
The National Science Foundation has constituted the development of the Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) Program wherein they intend to address scientific and technical issues that would pave the way towards the transformation of the healthcare process from being rather reactive and hospital centered into becoming preventive, proactive, evidence-based, patient-centered and focused on the wellbeing of the person rather than his/her disease.

---

Modeling Social Behavior Grant Program
The National Institutes of Health has collaborated with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in order to establish the Modeling Social Behavior Grant Program wherein they intend to seek applications for the development and evaluation of innovative theories, as well as computational, mathematical, and engineering approaches that could better our understanding of a human being's social behavior.

---

Effect of Physicochemical Properties of Ophthalmic Formulations on Ocular Bioavailability Program
In this capacity, the Food and Drug Administration has recently established the Effect of Physicochemical Properties of Ophthalmic Formulations on Ocular Bioavailability Program in an attempt to study the effects of various physicochemical properties of ophthalmic suspensions and emulsions on ocular bioavailability.

---

Clinical Trials for Organ Transplantation in Children Program
The National Insitutes of Health has formed a partnership with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to establish the Clinical Trials for Organ Transplantation in Children Program wherein both agencies intend to support a group of investigators in their quest of conducting clinical trials regarding pediatric solid organ transplant recipients.

---