Before joining NICHQ as Chief Health Officer in May 2018, Elizabeth Coté, MD, MPA, spent over a decade working to improve health in vulnerable communities across the world. From rebuilding the health infrastructure of war-torn Iraq to managing the opioid epidemic in a northern Maine community, Coté’s efforts revolved around one central goal. “Every day,…
Public health initiatives have traditionally been able to claim success by showing positive health impacts through program evaluations. However, as public health funding grows scarcer there is a growing expectation for evidence of economic impacts from funders. States like Oklahoma and Tennessee, among others, have seen the need for and benefit of generating double impact…
Simply put, fewer unplanned pregnancies means more healthy moms and babies. It’s a fact that has ignited efforts to address unplanned pregnancies as a strategy to improve infant mortality rates.
How do I find time to breastfeed my baby at school? What will my friends think if they see me breastfeeding? Shouldn’t my mom just watch my baby? She knows more than me anyway. We can only begin to imagine how difficult breastfeeding must seem to mothers who are in the midst of their adolescence….
Creating sustainable changes to improve infant feeding practices means sparking a social movement. It means generating a collective response to a complicated question: what is the healthiest way to feed our newborns?
Bedsharing can lead to longer breastfeeding duration. It also leads to more infant deaths. These opposing facts represent a major dilemma for those working to improve infant health. It becomes even trickier when we dive a little deeper. Breastfeeding also correlates with lower sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) rates, the most common cause of post-neonatal…
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently released a journal article and commentary focused on national and state trends in sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs). The study concluded that national SUID rates have stagnated and this is an opportunity for states to re-examine their efforts to improve safe-sleep practices. At the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ),…
C-sections financed by Medicaid, on average, cost nearly $5,000 more than vaginal births. With state Medicaid agencies financing nearly half of all births each year, improving birth outcomes is a priority. A 50-state environmental scan of strategies to improve women’s access to high quality preventive and perinatal care—released earlier this year in coordination with the…
With an infant mortality rate of 4.4 per 1,000 births, Vermont has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the country, but, the Vermont Department of Health (VDH) knows there is always room for improvement. As a part of the NICHQ-led Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network to Reduce Infant Mortality (Infant Mortality CoIIN) since…
The abuse of prescription drugs is a national problem. Sadly, it’s not just adults that are afflicted by this troublesome trend. Over 20,000 babies are born each year dependent on illegal or prescription drugs and suffer neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a type of opiate withdrawal. That’s the equivalent of one baby every 25 minutes.1,2 NAS…