Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Browse Recent ideas

There is a foundation that provides funds to institutions that partner with communities as an Institutional Challenge Grant. Since funders often drive research directions I think this could be a way to revolutionize data production towards community partnered solutions. This leads me to three similar ideas to that. 1. Grants for organizations to work with scientists to test and if good outcomes, scale their work. What's... more »

The path to health equity includes an examination of structural racism and bias; as part of this work, researchers must consider the intersectionality of disability, race and income when planning and implementing research.

Research enterprise should maximize benefits and decrease harm against marginalized communities by rethinking how language and engagement and research frameworks are approached.

Researchers should be trained on the benefits and best practices for engaging in team science with leaders across diverse fields. Researchers should reflect the communities they represent in every dimension, including underrepresented minority groups and individuals with disabilities.

Researchers must take the time to establish relationships, truly listen and have honest engagements to fully engage communities in the research process and ensure research is centered more on the lived experiences of communities.

Ethnic, racial, gender, class, and ability identities have implications for health during specific developmental periods and across the lifespan.

Researchers must engage with communities to inform policy, treatment, and prevention programs because only those within the community can provide valuable insight of their lived experiences.

To ensure health disparities research fully captures intersectionality, new assessment tools are needed that are specific to developmental periods and various social identities and that encompass diverse ethnic-racial groups. Qualitative and quantitative research methods are both valid means to capture high quality data.

Comprehensive conceptualizations of racism that include intersectionality, the use of targeted non-euphemistic terminology, multigenerational models, cultural sensitivity, and interventional studies must be developed to combat health disparities.

Significant changes need to take place at an institutional level to advance health disparities research and methods development, including addressing procedures in the grant review and funding processes that systematically limit minoritized researchers' access to grant funding and leadership roles.

Change only occurs when we first recognize the problems.   Diversity, equity, and inclusion can and should include 'many' even all. Yet grant applicants really have  are quite limited in the resource they can build into an application to improve diversity representation in their sample. We must encourage applicants to build in specific ideas and resources to address diversity

Any research efforts should include members of target community and their families in the early planning, especially with respect to proposed recruitment, information-gathering, treatment strategies (if appropriate), and analysis. The use of focus groups and consultants will improve the validity and scalability of the research findings. And finally, the ultimate research findings should be shared with those who participated... more »

There is a lack of researchers with neurodevelopmental conditions who investigate health-related disparities in people with neurodevelopmental conditions.  Imagine research on women conducted primarily by men.  Imagine research on Black and African Americans conducted primarily by Whites.  Imagine research on the LGBTQIA+ community conducted primarily by cis-gendered heterosexuals.  Researchers with neurodevelopmental... more »

Many people with neurodevelopmental conditions face an increased risk of physical health disparities.  However, much of the research on neurodevelopmental conditions is focused on the cause, cure, prevention, and treatment of neurodevelopmental conditions instead of on the co-occurring health conditions.  Many people within some populations with neurodevelopmental conditions (e.g., Autism, Down syndrome, etc) consider... more »

Similar to the INCLUDE initiative for Down Syndrome, we need NICHD to prioritize physical health disparities research in Adults with Neurodevelopmental disabilities that *do not have* a co-occurring intellectual disability.  Adults with neurodevelopmental disabilities (e.g., Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Schizophrenia, etc) face disparities in health outcomes and healthcare.  Autistic Adults, for example, are at a higher risk... more »