The Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy is a multidisciplinary Center comprised of interdisciplinary teams with expertise in neonatology, pediatrics, obstetrics, health policy, biostatistics, economics, implementation science, and public health from across Vanderbilt University and the Medical Center. The Center’s mission is to improve the well-being of children and families through research to transform clinical care and public health policy. Led by Director Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP, the Center for Child Health Policy members cover a broad spectrum of research, examining child health from a variety of lenses. 

Annually, the Center conducts the Vanderbilt Child Health Poll, a statewide poll of Tennessee parents to understand their perspectives on timely issues for Tennessee children, from food security to their child’s mental health. The Center continues to build initiatives to study child welfare policy in cooperation with Casey Family Programs and lived experts with the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance. Additionally, Center members have been recipients of two VUMC Office of Health Equity Innovation Awards to address fears around immigration policy and public benefit use among families with children in partnership with Conexión Américas and to provide firearm safety counseling and storage devices in the pediatric setting.
 
The Center recently launched two NIH-funded research projects focused on improving care for infants and families affected by the opioid crisis. The first project is a part of the Vanderbilt Integrated Center of Excellence in Maternal and Pediatric Precision Therapeutics (VICE-MPRINT). With the goal of creating EHR-derived algorithms to study dyadic outcomes for opioid-exposed infants and birthing parents that other health systems can implement, these efforts will facilitate broader research on this population. New partnerships with Tennessee state agencies will link a clinical population to state agency data and facilitate the study of outcomes for opioid-exposed dyads after discharge. The second project is developing and validating stakeholder-informed quality measures for opioid-exposed newborns in partnership with researchers at RAND Corporation. The goal of the project is to improve clinical care and outcomes for opioid-exposed infants and serve as a basis for future clinical trials. Additionally, the Center is working on a health equity supplement to a NIDA-funded project which examines the intersection of race/ethnicity and pregnancy status with disparities in opioid use disorder treatment and medication access. This will further our understanding of how pregnancy status may exacerbate underlying issues of equity in access to treatment for opioid use disorder.
 
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• Katherine Hartmann, MD: Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health, K12/NIH/NICHD
• Narender Annapureddy, MD: A Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Phase 3 Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of BIIB059 in Adult Participants With Active Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Receiving Backg, Biogen, Inc.
• Ebele Umeukeje, MD, MPH: MOVE Trial: MOtiVational Strategies to Empower African Americans to Improve Dialysis Adherence, R01/NIH/NIDDK
• Lindsay Mayberry, PhD: Adapting FAMS to Optimize CGM Use among Emerging Adults with Type 1 Diabetes, Leona M., and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust
• Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP: Developing Quality Measures for Opioid-Exposed Infants, R34/NIH/NIDA