Lee, Mengo and Yoon awarded seed grant

Drs. Joyce Lee, Cecilia Mengo and Susan Yoon were awarded an OSU Institute for Population Research (IPR) seed grant.

Their study, “Identifying Child Welfare System Processes Associated with Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Disparities,” aims to identify child welfare system processes that lead to maternal and child health disparities in the U.S. child welfare system.

“MCH disparities in the U.S. child welfare system are a high-priority public health issue because they not only reflect existing inequities driven by common social determinants of health but are also exacerbated by structural factors specific to the child welfare system,” says Lee.

Study findings would improve efforts to reduce MCH disparities in the child welfare system by identifying targets of system-level intervention and informing tailoring of programs by race/ethnicity.

The IPR offers seed grants to nurture and promote population research, with a focus on research that will eventually result in external funding. Seed grants can be used to collect or acquire data, conduct preliminary analyses, develop new collaborations, or other activities that help strengthen research proposals. Priority is given to research that falls within one or more of IPR’s four thematic areas: (i) Sexual and Reproductive Health; (ii) Family Demography; (iii) Mortality and Health over the Life Course; (iv) Migration. We especially value research that fits within the scientific mission of the NICHD Population Dynamics Branch.

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