"Research for Emergency Medical Services for Children," appearing in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts for the week ending Jan. 26, outlines federal EMSC research priorities, including:

• Prevention research to reduce the need for emergency care;
• Clinical research to ensure that children receive high-quality and appropriate medical, nursing and mental health care in an emergency;
• Health systems research, from pre-hospital to emergency department, to inpatient and rehabilitation care;
• Cost-effectiveness analyses; and
• Methodological studies to improve the quality of research conducted.

The Interagency Committee on EMSC Research joint program announcement identifies each agency’s EMSC-related research programs as well as eligibility and funding information. The committee is composed of members from HRSA, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and five of the National Institutes of Health. The federal collaboration grew out of a multidisciplinary group of professional organizations that met in 1997 to establish research priorities in light of the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for increased EMSC research.

The EMSC Program, a national initiative of HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was established in 1984 to help reduce childhood disability and death due to severe illness or injury. Its goal is to ensure that state-of-the-art, child-size emergency equipment is available for children, and that all emergency medical technicians and health care providers offer age-appropriate care, including rehabilitation.

The program announcement is located on the Internet at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-01-044.html. For more information on EMSC, visit http://mchb.hrsa.gov or www.ems-c.org, or call the EMSC National Resource Center at 202.884.4927.