Highlights of PAS2025
Post Date: May 11, 2025 | Publish Date:
From “Hot Topic” talks to poster presentations, experts at Cincinnati Children’s provided numerous contributions to pediatric science at this year’s Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting.
Taking on tough topics
Tina Cheng, MD, MPH — Cincinnati Children’s top research leader and an internationally known expert on improving pediatric health – presented on two major topics of concern at PAS2025:
She chaired a plenary session addressing a “crisis of worsening trends in the health and wellbeing of children, adolescents, and young adults” that expanded upon a major report from the National Academies entitled, “Launching Lifelong Health by Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Children.” Cheng co-authored the report.
“Even with expanded insurance coverage, many children lack access to adequate care. Health care payment models, usually relying on fee-for-service or value-based arrangements focused on lowering costs for high-cost adult patients, do not provide child health clinicians the flexibility or incentives to work with families nor partner with communities to address their needs,” Cheng says.
Read more about this far-reaching document at the Cincinnati Children’s Research Horizons blog: https://scienceblog.cincinnatichildrens.org/achieving-lifelong-health-starts-with-improving-child-health-and-wellbeing/
Cheng also chaired an important session addressing America’s youth mental health crisis. That session included information presented by Laurel Leslie, MD, MPH, inaugural director of our new Mental and Behavioral Health Institute, about “A School and Community Learning Health Network Approach in the Cincinnati Region.”
Learn more about the Mental and Behavioral Health Institute at Cincinnati Children’s: https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/service/m/mental-behavioral-health
Science spanning the spectrum
“It was inspiring to witness the collective achievements of the Cincinnati Children’s community and the global impact of our research, from bench to implementation, in advancing child health and well-being,” says Samir Shah, MD, MSCE, vice chair for Clinical Affairs and Education.
Other scientists at Cincinnati Children’s shared fresh findings, including:
Katsuaki Kojima, MD, PhD, MPH, presented impressive data collected by the Cincinnati Infant Neurodevelopment Early Prediction Study Investigators (CINEPS). The team found that mapping white matter tracts in very preterm newborns can predict cognitive outcomes at age 3.
This presentation updated findings published in March 2024 in the Journal of Pediatrics: Clinical Practice.
Kim Cecil, PhD, director of Basic and Translational Radiology Research, presented the latest in a series of eye-opening findings from the long-running Health Outcomes and Measures of the Environment (HOME) Study, launched at Cincinnati Children’s in 2003.
This report updates information published in Environmental Research about long-lasting brain development impacts caused by prenatal exposure to PBDEs, which have now been detected in children up to 12 years after exposure.
Melissa Day, MD, Clinical Fellow, Division of Infectious Diseases, reported findings showing that children with tuberculous infections wait twice as long from referral to their first clinical evaluation when they live in socioeconomically deprived neighborhoods – regardless of race, language, or type of insurance coverage.
Patrick Smith, MD, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellow, presented successful outcomes from a project that improved survival for children with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) by accelerating initiation of ECMO support.
PICU attending physician Allan Joseph, MD, MPH, shared the latest trends on shrinking access to high-readiness pediatric emergency care in rural areas. Learn more about his recent work to establish a novel set of pediatric acute care delivery regions across eight states.
Preventive cardiologist Sarah Henson, MD, led a symposium discussing how pediatricians can help predict and mitigate future cardiovascular disease.
Neonatologist Rebecca Henkel, MD, reported how remote patient monitoring successfully reduced readmissions when infants were sent home from NICU care with nasogastric tubes.
Pam Williams-Arya, MD, Mental and Behavioral Health Institute, reported notable developmental concerns among 103 preschoolers receiving care at Cincinnati Children’s Next Step Clinic for children with a history of prenatal opioid exposure. Findings included substantial rates of executive functioning difficulties (60%), sensory processing difficulties (45%), speech and language deficits (40%), ADHD diagnoses (30%), anxiety-related conditions (27%), and other behavior concerns (9.7%).
Joshua Sheak, MD, PhD, a clinical fellow in the Division of Neonatology and Pulmonary Biology, detailed the lack of pediatric specialists from indigenous populations and their uneven distribution in the United States. Three pediatric specialties have no representation at all: pulmonology, hospice and palliative care, and medical toxicology.
Leslie Cabrera Toribio, MD, a 2nd-year pediatric resident, presented findings that suggest interventions to build up confidence in parenting skills can make a difference in early child development. Using data collected from a city in Peru (one of many low- and middle-income countries where about 39% of children under age 5 are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential), she found that higher parental self-efficacy scores were significantly associated with adequate early child development outcomes.
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The Research Horizons blog features news and insights about the latest discoveries and innovations developed by the scientists of Cincinnati Children's. This blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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