On June 24, the Decade of the Child Committee, an initiative of the National Prevention Science Coalition (NPSC) and the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), hosted a day-long webinar addressing federal research investments and projects in whole child health and wellbeing. Leaders from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and child development experts examined how decades of federally supported research have transformed our understanding of child development, brain health, and mental health. Presentations emphasized prevention, cross-sector collaboration, implementation science, and translating scientific discoveries into evidence-based policies and practices. Here, FABBS provides overviews of key presentations most relevant to our members.
[Webinar Recording | Meeting Agenda]
Research to Facilitate the Translational Pipeline from Bench to Trench, Diana Fishbein, PhD
Dr. Fishbein, founder of NPSC, opened the webinar by framing the urgent need to move science from the laboratory into real-world communities. She explained that risks accumulate early in life and shape long-term opportunity, and that early experiences set children on divergent developmental pathways. Dr. Fishbein called for a paradigm shift from traditional research toward pragmatic research, which includes implementation, dissemination, scaling, and sustainability occurring simultaneously rather than sequentially. She urged cross-sector alliances that keep the child at the center, describing the goal as moving from “lab to life.”
Overview of Whole Child Health and Wellbeing, Christina Bethell, PhD
Dr. Bethell, Director of CAHMI at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, provided a comprehensive overview of the current state of child health in the U.S., presenting concerning statistics about children’s wellbeing. She shared that children with no social risk factors but two or more medical risk factors experience three times the rate of mental and emotional health diagnoses. Additionally, Dr. Bethell described that the absence of adversity is not the same as flourishing, and true wellbeing requires positive engagement in school, relationships, and productivity.
Decade of the Child Framework, Zili Sloboda, ScD
Dr. Sloboda, President and CEO of Applied Prevention Science International, presented the Decade of the Child Framework, tracing the history of coordinated national action on child health and the scientific dividends it has yielded. Dr. Sloboda advocated for secure, dedicated congressional funding for the NIH to take the lead in a formal Decade of the Child initiative, providing systematic reinforcement of child health research and policy.
Evidence and Research Foundations, Deena J. Chisolm, PhD
Dr. Chisolm examined the evidence and research foundations supporting whole child health, framing the child as the center of an ecosystem of interconnected needs. She underscored the importance of evidence-based interventions in low-income communities and safety net systems, and called for shared accountability across systems under initiatives such as Ohio’s Outcomes Acceleration for Kids program.
NICHD/NIH Leadership in Whole Child Health Initiatives, Rohan Hazra, PhD
Dr. Hazra, Acting Director of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), reviewed NICHD’s leadership in whole child health research. He noted that NIH invested approximately $5 billion spread across multiple institutes and centers (ICs) for pediatric research in 2024. He also highlighted the NIH Pediatric Research Consortium (NPeRC), established in 2018 to increase collaboration and coordination of pediatric research across NIH. Dr. Hazra discussed several ongoing projects, including the Technology and Digital Media Research Agenda, co-led by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) with congressional support, and noted a major move to consolidate formal funding opportunities into four core Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) at NICHD.
NCCIH Investments in Whole Child Health and Wellbeing, David Shurtleff, PhD
Dr. Shurtleff, Acting Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), presented his center’s contributions to whole child health through a whole person health research lens. Shurtleff highlighted a number of NIH-wide initiatives that support an integrated approach to health and described the importance of building national resources to support large-scale real-world trials. He discussed the Guiding Good Choices program, a family-centered prevention model for adolescent mental health and wellbeing, and stressed the need to move beyond disease treatment toward multidimensional, timely, and context-sensitive interventions.
NIDA Investments in Whole Child Health and Wellbeing, Nora Volkow, MD
Dr. Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), reviewed two landmark longitudinal studies anchoring NIDA’s investments in child and adolescent development. Of note is the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (NIDA’s largest project), which follows 12,000 children from ages 9-10 through early adulthood, collecting data across physical health, genomics, mental health, substance use, neuroimaging, neurocognition, and geocoded community data. Now at its ten-year mark, the study has generated several critical findings in factors impacting child development.
NIMH Investments in Whole Child Health and Wellbeing, Andrea Beckel-Michener, PhD
NIMH Acting Director Dr. Beckel-Michener shared that in the past two decades, rates of mental health conditions have risen in all age groups from 10-24 year olds, with 2021 seeing the highest recorded suicide rates, particularly among young adults aged 20-24. Despite this fact, 48.4 percent of children aged 3-17 with mental health needs do not receive treatment. Dr. Beckel-Michener noted a growing trend of adolescents turning to conversational chatbots for mental health support without professional oversight, raising important questions about safety and efficacy.
NCI Investments in Whole Child Health and Wellbeing, Brigitte Widemann, MD
Dr. Widemann, Chief of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Pediatric Oncology Branch, described NCI’s work in childhood cancer research, centered around the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative launched in 2019. The Initiative deposits clinical and molecular data in real time into a national data ecosystem. She also highlighted NCI’s Molecular Characterization Initiative as a national strategy for comprehensive characterization of pediatric cancers, and outlined recent FDA approvals for pediatric cancer treatments.
The Future of Whole Child Health Research, Ronald Prinz, PhD | Anthony Biglan, PhD
Dr. Prinz, Co-Director of the University of South Carolina Research Center for Child Well-Being, opened the afternoon sessions with a compelling argument for reorienting public health infrastructure toward prevention in child mental health, behavioral health, and developmental wellbeing. He proposed parenting support as a universal public necessity, citing over 40 years of NIH and other federal research demonstrating the effectiveness of parenting interventions. Dr. Prinz called for a shift from individual-family research models to population-based approaches, describing a three-tiered framework: (1) broad community and digital strategies for the general population, (2) efficient light-touch programming for lower-need groups, and (3) intensive support for the small proportion with highest need. He emphasized the need for greater investment in research on systems-level return on investment.
Identifying Policy Levers to Sustain Impactful Change, Charles Bruner, PhD | Jesse Kohler
Dr. Bruner, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, and Kohler, Founder and President of The Change Campaign, examined the policy landscape for sustaining child health investments, identifying key levers within federal and state systems for embedding evidence-based approaches into policy and funding structures. With non-medical factors having a 70 percent impact on long-term health, they emphasized the importance of cross-sector alignment and accountability mechanisms to ensure that research investments translate into durable improvements in child and family wellbeing.
