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NIH grants support SUNY's neuroscience, pediatric pharmacology and vision research

The State University of New York has received two grants totaling more than $4.3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support neuroscience and pediatric pharmacology and vision research as part of SUNY REACH, a collaborative research network of SUNY's four academic health centers and the College of Optometry.

15 Oct 2011

Indoor cooking stoves kill 2 million annually, NIH study says

Pollution from indoor cooking stoves, typically open fires that that burn solid fuels such as wood, charcoal or dung, kills two million globally each year, scientists at NIH said in a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reports.

15 Oct 2011

Lower-income, urban dads encourage exercise and healthy diet for their children

Lower-income, urban dads are involved in their children's health and encourage them to exercise and eat healthy foods, reports a new study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. But these same dads may also give their kids the wrong dose of medicine and may be uncomfortable handling emergency medical care for their children.

14 Oct 2011

Improved SNAP benefit levels more effective for children's health

Pediatric researchers from Boston Medical Center (BMC), in partnership with Children's HealthWatch investigators in Boston, Minneapolis, Little Rock, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, have found that higher benefit amounts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program protected the health and well-being of very young, low-income children during a period of great financial hardship for many families in America.

13 Oct 2011

U.S. Ambassador advises Kenya to seek additional sources of funding for health programs

"U.S. Ambassador Jonathan Gration has advised Kenya to seek new sources of money to finance health programs," Kenya's the Star reports, adding, "Gration said projects initiated by donors will only be sustainable if the Kenyan government takes over."

13 Oct 2011

CHOP, Albert Einstein College of Medicine to study genetics of conotruncal defects

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and collaborators at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) a five-year, $6.7 million grant to study the genetics of both rare and common congenital heart abnormalities known as conotruncal defects.

12 Oct 2011

NICU stress linked with alterations in brain structure and function of preterm infants

New research shows that exposure to stressors in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is associated with alterations in the brain structure and function of very preterm infants. According to the study now available in Annals of Neurology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, infants who experienced early exposure to stress displayed decreased brain size, functional connectivity, and abnormal motor behavior.

4 Oct 2011

Increased focus on vaccine for dengue fever is critical to curb spread of disease

In this GlobalPost opinion piece, Zulfiqar Bhutta, Husein Laljee Dewraj professor and head of the Division of Maternal and Child Health at the Aga Khan University Medical Center in Karachi, Pakistan, and Ciro de Quadros, executive vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and former director of the Division of Vaccines and Immunization at PAHO, examine the need for a dengue fever vaccine as Pakistan struggles to curb an outbreak of the disease that to date has killed 60 people and has infected more than 8,000.

30 Sep 2011

United Nations 66th General Assembly to discuss how to reduce NCDs

University of Bergen researchers have contributed to an international declaration on the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Now the UN is discussing the issue.

30 Sep 2011

VOICE HIV prevention trial to discontinue use of tenofovir tablets

VOICE, an HIV prevention trial evaluating two antiretroviral (ARV)-based approaches for preventing the sexual transmission of HIV in women - daily use of one of two different ARV tablets or of a vaginal gel - will be dropping one of the oral tablets from the study.

29 Sep 2011

Transparent reporting tool needed to monitor progress in maternal, child health

In this post in the Center for Global Development's "Global Health Policy" blog, Nandini Oomman, director of the HIV/AIDS Monitor at the center, and Rachel Silverman, a research assistant at the center, respond to a one-year assessment of progress released by the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) on September 20, calling it "strangely short on meaningful data and clear messages about progress."

28 Sep 2011

With increasing population, now is not the time to cut international family planning funding

Robert Walker, executive vice president of the Population Institute, writes in this Huffington Post opinion piece that despite an increase in government and NGO support for maternal and child health programs, including family planning services, announced last week by the U.N. as part of its Every Woman, Every Child campaign, "the world's largest donor nation, the United States, is retreating on its commitments to international family planning, and other donor nations may follow suit."

27 Sep 2011

Autism Speaks ATN receives federal grant to continue to serve as AIR-P

The Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Network (ATN), has received a $12 million federal grant to continue to serve as the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health.

27 Sep 2011

African Leaders Malaria Alliance launches malaria scorecard

"The African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) has launched a scorecard to improve the fight against malaria on the African continent," IRIN reports. "Updated quarterly, it provides information from each country on policies formulated, preventative measures initiated, money spent, lives saved and lost," and "also tracks tracer indicators for maternal, newborn and child health," the news service writes.

23 Sep 2011

Funds awarded to improve maternal and child health with home visits

In another round of grants funded by the 2010 health law, the Department of Health and Human Services provided resources to support efforts by nurses, social workers, or other health care professionals to make home visits to low-income families that agree to meet with them in their homes. Also, Kansas Health Institute News reports on the funds awarded to Kansas.

23 Sep 2011

Global partnership accelerates progress in maternal, child health

In a post in the State Department's "DipNote" blog, Scott Radloff, director of the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at USAID, examines how, for the past year, the Alliance for Reproductive, Maternal, and Newborn Health, a partnership between USAID, the U.K. Department for International Development, the Australian Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched at last year's U.N. General Assembly Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, has "accelerated progress in improving maternal and child health" worldwide.

23 Sep 2011

U.N. calls for advancement on goal to save women and children; poorest countries, drug company contribute to fight

Speaking at a high-level meeting at U.N. headquarters on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, while lauding the progress made under the Every Woman Every Child initiative since its launch one year ago, noted that millions of women and children "are still dying needless deaths and called for advancing the goal of saving 16 million lives by 2015," the U.N. News Centre reports.

22 Sep 2011

Three reports evaluate global progress to meet MDGs 4 and 5

Three recent reports -- a one-year assessment released by the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health of the WHO on Tuesday, an analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington published on Tuesday in the Lancet, and a Save the Children report released on Monday entitled "No Child out of Reach" -- examine the progress of the global campaign to save mothers and children under five in developing nations and evaluate whether Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, reducing child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 and maternal deaths by three-quarters over the same period, can be met.

21 Sep 2011

World leaders should commit to closing health care worker gap

Recent U.N. statistics showing a drop in child mortality are both good and bad, because the number of child deaths continues to drop, but "progress isn't reaching all families around the world, and it isn't reaching newborn babies as often as older children," Joy Lawn, director of Global Evidence and Policy for Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives program, writes in a GlobalPost opinion piece.

21 Sep 2011

UIC wins HRSA-MCHB grant to expand disabilities training program

A successful University of Illinois at Chicago-based interdisciplinary effort to train leaders in programs that help children with developmental disabilities and autism has won a $3.3 million five-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration-Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

21 Sep 2011