Division of Research on Children, Youth, and Families (DRCYF)

Department of Pediatrics

Keck School of Medicine/University of Southern California

The Division of Research on Children, Youth, and Families (DRCYF) was established in 2001 to promote the health and well-being of children, adolescents, and families through prevention, health promotion, health services and health outcomes research. The overarching mission of the DRCYF is to conduct, coordinate, facilitate, and disseminate research intended to: 1) prevent childhood and lifelong health problems; 2) promote healthy development; 3) reduce disparities in children’s health that may be associated with socioeconomic status, health coverage and insurance, access to care, and race/ethnicity and immigration status; 4) restore function and prevent disability among children with special needs; and 5) ensure the delivery of quality care through health outcomes research. The specific aims are to:

• Strengthen current efforts to prevent some of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among children and adolescents, and promote the health and well-being of children, adolescents, families and the communities in which they live;
  
• Clarify the contribution of race, social class, education, culture, and environment in an effort to reduce disparities in children and adolescents’ access to care, service utilization patterns, quality of care, health outcomes, and health status;
  
• Strengthen current efforts and approaches to restore function and prevent disability among children with special needs; and
  
• Promote the delivery of high quality, cost effective, and culturally sensitive health care through health outcomes, demonstration, and effectiveness research.

Furthermore, the DRCYF seeks to advance the field of health services and health outcomes research by:

• Showcasing new research, programs, and policies that have demonstrated promise in improving the health and well-being of children, adolescents, and their families;
  
• Convening and fostering collaborations among individuals who represent diverse viewpoints and backgrounds, with a view to enhancing the quality of leadership in the field of children’s health services research; and
  
• Translating research findings and their policy implications to a variety of audiences, including the scientific community, national, state, and local policy makers, consumers, community-based organizations, and other key stakeholders.

The DRCYF conducts research that is interdisciplinary, collaborative, cumulative, applied, and closely linked to policy and practice. Moreover, the DRCYF’s work emphasizes the importance of adopting a developmental framework that focuses attention on the differing needs, circumstances, and key transitions that children, adolescents, and young adults experience as they grow and develop. Whenever possible, the DRCYF works closely with faculty and staff across the various Departments and Divisions at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to ensure that there are clear and tangible linkages between research, clinical care, and program development. Finally, considerable effort is made to disseminate the research findings widely and strategically to key stakeholder groups (e.g., federal, state, and local policy makers, health providers, advocacy groups, the media, and parents). The following provides a brief discussion of research areas and topics that are currently being addressed within the Division of Research on Children, Youth, and Families.

Health Services and Health Outcomes Research

Health services and health outcomes research is being conducted to promote the development, application, and evaluation of evidence-based standards of care and practice guidelines that can be linked to the delivery of high quality and cost-effective care at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and in the community that it serves. Health services research is being conducted to characterize and address:

• Children’s access to care, utilization patterns, and barriers to care;
• The delivery of patient-centered and culturally relevant care to children, adolescents and their families;
• Sources of medical errors and patient safety;
• The effectiveness and efficacy of hospital-, clinic-, and community-based interventions;
• Legal and ethical considerations for involving children and teens in health services research;
• Bioinformatics and its application to pediatric and adolescent medicine; and
• Medical geography (spatial modeling and analysis of community characteristics and their relationship to child health and health outcomes).

Prevention and Health Promotion Research

Prevention and health promotion research is being conducted to address some of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality, as well as emerging threats to the health and well-being of children, adolescents, and families. Evaluations of prevention and health promotion interventions and program services – both those of Childrens Hospital and those of local foundations and community-based foundations -- are also being performed. Moreover, individual, familial, social, and community influences are being examined in an effort to characterize risk and protective factors, and for the purpose of developing and evaluating prevention and health promotion interventions. These may include child demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity, immigration status and acculturation), family and household characteristics (e.g., household type, household composition, income/poverty, parents’ education and employment), child and social environment characteristics (e.g., child care type, unsupervised time, involvement in extracurricular activities), community characteristics (e.g., SES, social capital, racial/ethnic composition, crime rates, distance from hospitals/health clinics/community centers), child and adolescent health outcomes (physical and mental health, activity limitations, utilization of health care services), child and adolescent well-being (e.g., behavior problems, peer relationships, academic engagement and achievement), and parental health (physical and mental health).