Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH)
Strategic Research Priorities
IHDCYH has identified 11 strategic priorities. Several of the original priority research themes have been retained, and a number of others have been added.
IHDCYH will continue to support the following 4 research priorities from its original strategic plan:
- Causes and prevention of congenital anomalies
- Genetic, environmental and nutritional determinants
- Biological mechanisms
- Brain and neurosensory development
- Psychosocial factors and their relationship to causation, prevention and treatment
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder
- Prenatal factors in pregnant teens associated with risky behaviours
- Fetal growth and preterm birth
- Pre-eclampsia and other diseases of pregnancy
- Intrauterine growth restriction
- Preterm labour
- Developmental origins of adult disease
- Causes, prevention and treatment of major chronic illnesses in children
- Asthma
- Obesity
- Type 1 and 2 diabetes
- Healthy developmental trajectories
- Determinants and trajectories of children with physical, emotional, and mental health problems
- Resilience
- Transition challenges during adolescence
- Effects of puberty on brain development and psychosocial development
- Early identification and targeted interventions to improve trajectories
Seven new strategic research priorities have been added to these 4 original ones:
- Effects of the physico-chemical environment on reproductive and child health and development
- Environmental contaminants
- Gene-environment interactions
- Biomarkers of exposure
- Adverse reproductive and pregnancy outcomes
- Neurocognitive development
- Improving the health, development and quality of life of children and youth with chronic illnesses and disabilities
- Self-management of chronic illness
- Health care utilization
- Effective and value-added interventions
- Quality of life
- Health of Aboriginal mothers, children and youth
- Individual, family and community factors that promote favourable health outcomes
- Nutrition and physical activity
- Housing quality and health
- Mental health and addiction
- Maternal health and lifestyle
- Maternal nutrition and physical activity
- Maternal disability in the postnatal period
- Physical and sexual abuse
- Mental health and addiction
- Breastfeeding
- Teenage and delayed childbearing
- Childhood injury and maltreatment
- Risk factors and prevention
- Parenting styles
- Exposure to violence and development of violent behaviour
- Youth violence
- Long-term sequelae
- Indicators of maternal and child health, and access to and quality of reproductive and child health care services
- Maternal and child morbidity
- Availability of and access to appropriate health care servicesQuality of in-patient and ambulatory care services
- Indicators of good health
- Mental health and addiction of children and youth
- Behavioural disorders
- Depression and anxiety in children and teens
- Eating disorders
- Substance abuse
- Etiology, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and conduct disorder
The 11 research priorities constitute the framework within which IHDCYH will operate in the coming years. We do not necessarily intend to launch large, multidisciplinary RFAs in all 11 priorities, however. Which of the themes will form the basis of IHDCYH's team grant RFAs will depend partly on the interest of other CIHR Institutes and of non-Institute partners. Moreover, the themes will guide us in choosing among the large number of potential areas for funding start-up grants for new investigators, smaller high-risk projects, research syntheses, research training awards, and investigator salary awards. They will also guide us in responding to approaches from other CIHR Institutes and other partners to co-fund strategic initiatives for which they have taken the lead. We will use these themes not only to orient our future work, but also to report on our activities and to evaluate ourselves at the end of our next 5 years.
