Child Health and Policy: Committed to Improving the Health of Children

Our Mission

Our Center aims to enhance the wellbeing of children and their families through research, evaluation, and advocacy that informs innovation in maternal-child health services and policy.

What We Do

• Partner in research and evaluation related to child health. We conduct implementation research and program evaluation for grant-funded clinical programs, including wrap-around services at the UH Rainbow Center for Women & Children.  We also support trainees in scholarly and quality improvement efforts related to child, family, and community health in ambulatory and community settings.
• Promote child health policy and advocacy. Center for Child Health & Policy supports UH Rainbow faculty and trainees as they engage policymakers and government agency leaders at multiple levels to inform and influence initiatives that advance children’s health.
• Provide research infrastructure for the UH Rainbow Division of General Academic Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (GAP). Center for Child Health & Policy maintains the GAP research database, ensures coordination among studies, consults on study design and implementation, and can support faculty and trainees on their scholarly projects.

Our History

Founded in 2007 by Dr. Leona Cuttler, the UH Rainbow Center for Child Health & Policy (CCHP) facilitates multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to increase the understanding of complex relationships between social, structural, and healthcare needs that influence health outcomes. To date, our portfolio of work has used a population/public health lens to focus on the following areas:

• High impact chronic conditions of childhood including asthma, obesity, diabetes, behavioral and mental health
• Maternal/fetal/newborn and early childhood health including infant mortality, home visitation, and perinatal healthcare
• Evaluation of healthcare delivery systems innovations at the hyper-local, regional and state level

CCHP was led by Dr. Leona Cuttler from 2007-13 followed by Dr. Michelle Walsh (2013-15), Dr. Lawrence Kleinman (2015-18), and Dr. Sarah Ronis (2018-present).