National Academies Report Charts a Path to Strengthen NIH-Funded Pediatric Research

Research By: Leah Kottyan, PhD

Post Date: February 6, 2026 | Publish Date:

photo of physician listening to the heart of a toddler

Recommendations include a life-course approach that integrates pediatric science across all areas of research, improves inclusion of children in studies, and accelerates translation of discoveries into clinical impact.

A new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Strategies to Enhance NIH-Funded Pediatric Research: Optimizing Child Health, offers a strategic plan for aligning the National Institutes of Health (NIH) pediatric research enterprise with evolving child health challenges and opportunities. The report was created by the National Academies’ Committee on Strategies to Enhance Pediatric Health Research Funded by NIH, whose findings underscore the urgency of advancing pediatric research as a core NIH priority to improve child health and long-term outcomes.

Why Pediatric Research Matters Now

Leah Kottyan, PhD, professor in the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Cincinnati Children’s, served as a member of the committee, contributing her expertise in genetic and immunologic aspects of pediatric disease.

“Personally, this work reinforced why I chose this profession and how personal my research is to me,” she said. “Children are not small adults, and research that centers on the pediatric life course is one of the most important investments we can make for long-term health across generations.”

The report highlights that, despite prior successes in reducing child mortality and advancing pediatric care, child health in the United States faces persistent challenges. These trends have broad implications for lifelong health and place new demands on the research ecosystem.

“In 2026, children across the United States have a high and even rising incidence of chronic diseases including obesity, asthma, and diabetes,” Kottyan said. “Altogether, historic gains in childhood survival were driven by the federally funded biomedical research, but today’s childhood health burden is shifting to chronic disease and widening gaps.”

Key Recommendations for NIH

The committee offers eight recommendations centered on four strategic goals:

Integrate Pediatric Research Across NIH: Pediatric research should be recognized and supported throughout NIH, not confined to isolated institutes. This includes adopting a clear, agency-wide definition of “pediatric research” and refining NIH’s Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization (RCDC) system to better capture pediatric studies across developmental stages and conditions.
Address Unmet Needs in Child Health Science: NIH should ensure that research portfolios reflect pediatric health priorities, including basic, translational, and clinical science. Unlocking pediatric insights requires attention to developmental biology, disease mechanisms, and early-life determinants of health.
Strengthen Translation of Discoveries: The report calls for improved pathways to translate basic and clinical research into interventions, technologies, and practices that benefit children. This includes supporting longer, multisite studies and tailored funding mechanisms that reflect the unique needs of pediatric research.
Build Trust and Community Engagement: Enhancing participation and impact requires intentional engagement with patients, families, and communities. The committee emphasizes community-based research strategies and transparent dissemination of results to foster trust and equity in pediatric research.

A Vision for the Future

The report advocates for pediatric research to be a central, visible NIH priority, with structures and policies that reflect the importance of children’s health across the life course. It frames pediatric research not as a niche domain but as foundational to understanding human health and disease more broadly.

“This is not just a ‘policy document,’ ” Kottyan said. “It is a roadmap for making pediatric science more visible, more fundable, and more integrated across NIH. I also hope investigators feel invited into the effort. The recommendations are implementable, but they require the research community to keep making the case for ethical inclusion of children in studies, appropriate timelines and budgets, and metrics that reflect pediatric realities.”