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Innovating Maternal and Child Health: Incentive Prizes to Improve Early Childhood Development

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Abstract

Purpose

Protecting and advancing maternal and child health is a critical goal to both society and to the economy, given that their health is a predictor of the next generation’s health. Yet despite this recognition, many of the communities aiming to improve maternal and child health still problem-solve in silos: age silos, disease silos, organizational silos, disciplinary silos, data silos, and communication silos, often created or exacerbated by the disconnected approaches to research, funding, and reporting. These silos limit discovery and spread of new solutions to important maternal and child health problems.

Description

In this paper, we will discuss federal incentive prizes as a tool to break down silos and to engineer cognitive diversity and transdisciplinary collaboration.

Assessment

In 2018, the United States Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau (HRSA MCHB) launched the “Maternal and Child Health Bureau Grand Challenges,” a suite of four prize competitions totaling $1.5 million addressing critical issues in maternal and child health. These included federal challenges designed to (1) prevent childhood obesity in low-income communities, (2) improve the remote monitoring of pregnancy, (3) improve care coordination and planning for children with special health care needs, and (4) prevent opioid misuse among pregnant women and new mothers.

Conclusion

The ability to incentivize innovation to address critical public health issues cannot rest in the private sector alone. Complementing other investments, the Challenge mechanism’s power to catalyze the rapid development of innovative solutions can improve how we address barriers to achieve optimal maternal and child health for the families that we serve.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. George Washington University School of Nursing, 1919 Pennsylvania Ave NW Suite 500, Washington, DC, 20006, USA

    Ashley Darcy Mahoney

  2. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Natalie Brito

  3. Florida International University, Miami, USA

    Melissa Baralt

  4. Department of Health and Human Services / Maternal Child Health Bureau, Rockville, USA

    Jessie Buerlein

  5. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Biomedical Advanced Research & Development Authority, Washington, USA

    Sandeep Patel

  6. University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Michael Lu

Authors
  1. Ashley Darcy Mahoney
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  2. Natalie Brito
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  3. Melissa Baralt
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  4. Jessie Buerlein
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  5. Sandeep Patel
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  6. Michael Lu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ashley Darcy Mahoney.

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Mahoney, A.D., Brito, N., Baralt, M. et al. Innovating Maternal and Child Health: Incentive Prizes to Improve Early Childhood Development. Matern Child Health J 25, 1508–1515 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03219-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-021-03219-y

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