Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) – Research Priorities

• In Event: Early Career Funding Opportunities and Child Development Research Priorities at the National Institutes of Health

Abstract

NICHD funds research across a wide range of scientific areas relevant to the SRCD community. Relevant topics include contraception, fertilization, pregnancy, childbirth, prenatal and postnatal development, childhood development through adolescence, intellectual and developmental disabilities, rehabilitation medicine, and infectious disease efforts. The goal of this brief talk will be to provide an overview of some of the most relevant scientific priorities, and how individual researchers should think about these priorities when planning their research projects and associated grants submissions.
We will provide an overview of the NICHD’s Strategic Plan, published in 2019, which outlines NICHD’s vision and mission statements, and lays out the institute’s research themes, goals, and objectives. Several of the Plan’s primary research themes are relevant to the research being done by the SRCD community, including improving child and adolescent health and the transition to adulthood; advancing safe and effective therapeutics and devices for pregnant and lactating persons, children, and people with disabilities; understanding the molecular, cellular, and structural basis of development; and promoting gynecologic, andrologic, and reproductive health. The Strategic Plan also highlighted a few relevant, and more specific, aspirational research goals, including to discover how technology exposure and media use affect developmental trajectories, and to enhance the survival and healthy development of preterm infants by exploring the role of environmental factors. Lastly, there are several cross-cutting topics with touch points to the SRCD community, including disease prevention, health disparities, global health, and nutrition.
These broad priorities are reflected in and supported by a more specific or focused set of priorities within each of the individual branches of NICHD. For example, the Child Development and Behavior Branch supports basic and translational research and training that addresses the typical neurocognitive, psychological, behavioral, physical, and social-emotional development and health of infants, children, and adolescents. This branch supports research on how individual differences in development are affected by genetic, neurobiological, and socioecological influences, and basic research to identify the mechanisms by which atypical development and related health outcomes in children and adolescents from diverse backgrounds and subpopulations arise from or are differentially affected by various risk/protective factors. We will discuss the priorities of several other branches within the institute that support research relevant to the SRCD community, including the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Branch, the Pediatric Growth and Nutrition Branch, and the Population Dynamics Branch.

Author

• Virginia Charlotte Salo, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD/NIH)
  Presenting Author