“Best Practices for Improving the Health of Every Child”: An Update on the Pediatric Vital Signs Project
In 2020, Nationwide Children’s Hospital began a first-of-its-kind initiative to measure and improve the well-being of an entire population of children, called “Pediatric Vital Signs.”
The hospital and a coalition of community partners identified eight metrics, or Vital Signs, throughout the span of childhood – from infant mortality rate to high school graduation rates – that could be proxies for child health in Franklin County, Ohio.
Then using that data, the coalition could work to improve health for every child. The goals were certain clear improvements in the metrics by 2030.
It’s halfway through the decade. How is the initiative doing?
For many of those eight measures, important progress has been made, say the leaders of the Nationwide Children’s effort. But there have also been some obstacles, as the leaders write in a recent Pediatrics supplement.
“There was one key challenge we did not anticipate: a global pandemic that would begin as soon as the work was scheduled to start,” write Alex Kemper, MD, MPH, Christine Sander, MHA, and Kelly Kelleher, MD, MPH.
Dr. Kemper, Dr. Kelleher and Ms. Sander, along with many of their collaborators, have published seven papers as a mid-point update on Pediatric Vital Signs in that recent Pediatrics supplement. An eighth paper serves as commentary and context on the work, from authors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who express optimism about the project’s ultimate importance.
“(T)he Ohio (Pediatric Vital Signs) initiative may offer a view into new best practices for protecting the health of every child and improving the future of the nation,” according to the commentary, written by Jennifer W. Kaminski, PhD and Debra Houry, MD, MPH.
The supplement updates efforts on five of the vital signs:
Because poverty has emerged as a core theme through all of the Pediatric Vital Signs work, one paper also explores an effort to provide clinic-based free tax preparation services.
Three of the originally developed Pediatric Vital Signs – high school graduation, overall child mortality and delivery of preventive services – remain in early stages, and so they are not explored in these papers.
Halfway through the decade-long initiative, the Pediatric Vital Signs team says remain committed to the effort, and they hope it can provide a model for others to follow.
“We believe that children’s hospitals should not only lead each community’s effort to identify pediatric vital signs relevant to their community, but also take the lead in ensuring improvement in these signs for children and adolescents, even if they are not the provider for these particular children,” says Dr. Kelleher.
Published April 2025
