HRSA staff contributed to a recently published special supplement to the Annals of Internal Medicine journal, to focus on evidence-based approaches to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the United States. Experts at HRSA contributed to the journal articles, which address specific HRSA maternal health initiatives, the impact of opioid use during pregnancy and issues faced by rural populations. External authors include partners from the University of Chicago, Stanford University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Utah and the World Health Organization.

Learn more about the special supplement.

The ability of 3- to 5-year-olds to practice self-control is an important developmental milestone predictive of later success. Dr. Reem Ghandour, an epidemiologist with HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau, collaborated with researchers at the CDC to examine the risks and protective factors that influence this aspect of a child’s development.

The newly published study, Factors Associated with Self-regulation in a Nationally Representative Sample of Children Ages 3–5 Years: United States, 2016, compared the qualities of parents who identify their preschoolers as “on track” to those “not on track” with this developmental skill. Children described as “on track” more often lived in financially and socially advantaged environments and less often experienced family adversity. Only half of children not “on track” received developmental screening and only 25% of children described as “not on track” received educational, mental health, or developmental services.

Learn more about the study, or contact Dr. Reem Ghandour.

A new report from HRSA released this week shows that clients receiving Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program medical care were virally suppressed at a record level – 88.1 percent – in 2019.

This means people with HIV who take medication daily as prescribed and reach and maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner. Led by HRSA’s HIV/AIDS Bureau, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Annual Client-Level Data Report, 2019, is the sixth annual publication of national client-level data from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Services Report (RSR).

The RSR is HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau’s primary source of annual, client-level data reported by more than 2,000 funded Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program recipients and subrecipients across the United States. The publication provides an in-depth look at demographic and socioeconomic factors among program clients served, including age, race/ethnicity, transmission risk category, federal poverty level, health care coverage and housing status. The report also assesses the demographics of those receiving services and highlights the progress and disparities in HIV-related outcomes – particularly viral suppression.

Read the report.