The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has had a long history of supporting research to better understand the factors that promote optimal child development as well as factors that contribute to poor outcomes, particularly for vulnerable children who experience early life adversities such as child maltreatment and violence exposure. The NICHD mission encourages a life course perspective that considers the long-term implications of these childhood experiences on later health and well-being.

Towards that end, the NICHD along with colleagues across the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies have supported research on the aetiology, treatment, management and prevention of child maltreatment. These agencies have also fostered multidisciplinary collaborations among researchers from the child health, injury prevention, emergency medicine, education and juvenile justice fields to collectively identify and address the research …