Prevention is an important focus of the research NICHD conducts and supports.
Prevention includes multiple aspects1 including:
- Primary Prevention: Intervening before health effects occur. These interventions, like vaccines, may keep a condition, disease, or disability from occurring at all.
- Secondary Prevention: Screening to identify a disease or condition as early as possible, usually before symptoms have started. These early interventions, such as those that result from newborn screening, may prevent the condition from affecting health or may minimize health effects and symptoms.
- Tertiary Prevention: Managing health after diagnosis. These interventions, such as rehabilitation and medication, may prevent or reduce the severity of poor health outcomes and may improve long-term health.
Within this context, NICHD’s prevention-related efforts cover a range of topics, such as preterm labor and birth, mother-to-child-transmission of HIV and other infectious diseases, pediatric obesity, rehabilitation through physical activity and exercise, pregnancy loss, and newborn screening.
Highlights
- NICHD News on Prevention Research
- NICHD Accomplishments (including prevention-related activities)
- NIH Office of Disease Prevention Workshop: Can Physical Activity Improve the Health of Wheelchair Users? (March 30-31, 2020)
- NIH Office of Disease Prevention Workshop: Achieving Health Equity in Preventive Services (June 19-20, 2019)
- Preventing Bullying Through Science, Policy, and Practice : NICHD's Child Development and Behavior Branch co-sponsored this stakeholder workshop at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. A report, toolkit, and public service announcement-style video are available.
- Disability and Pregnancy: Research from NIDILRR and NICHD (PDF 279 KB)
This brief summarizes findings from research funded by NICHD and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) about reproductive education, experiences, and outcomes among women with long-term disability. - Emotional Well-Being: Emerging Insights and Questions for Future Research Report
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) collaborated with NICHD, among other institutes, centers, and offices, to discuss how to gain a deeper insight into the existing research on the role of emotional well-being in health, including a focus on combined health promotion/disease prevention efforts. - RFA-AT-20-003: Emotional Well-Being: High-Priority Research Networks (U24 Clinical Trial Optional)
- OBSSR Research Spotlight August 2019: Stress during pregnancy is linked with long-term effects on mother’s health
Monk, C., Webster, R. S., McNeil, R. B., Parker, C. B., Catov, J. M., Greenland, P., Bairey, M. C. N., ... Grobman, W. A. (2019). Associations of perceived prenatal stress and adverse pregnancy outcomes with perceived stress years after delivery. Archives of Women's Mental Health. PMID: 31256258 - Innovative Models for Preventing School Readiness Disparities in Pediatric Primary Care: National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council presentations on the Video Interaction Project (VIP) and the need for accessible pediatric primary care beginning in early childhood, to prevent poverty-related disparities.