Childhood Cancer Should be Top Children's Health Research Priority, Says New Poll

[ Music ] >> Hi there, I'm Dr. Matt Davis. I'm a primary care pediatrician and the Director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. This month we are going to take a look at the public's priorities when it comes to children's health research. Now, children's health research has been the source of many major discoveries over the past 50 to 60 years, discoveries related to vaccines and medications and miniature devices that can help kids survive with otherwise very lift-threatening conditions. Most of those ideas have come from researchers themselves who have taken those ideas to the laboratory and made the most of their discoveries. But we wondered, in a time of funding constraints and increasing transparency and accountability of decision-makers to the public, what the public thinks the priorities should be for children's health research going forward. To do that, we asked them which topics they thought would be very important in making difference in children's health. The topic that came out first was childhood cancer. Number 2 is diabetes. And number 3, birth defects and other genetic conditions. With that top 3 list, there is quite a bit of similarity between the research emphasis in the researcher community and what the public things should be the top priorities. We also found differences in the National Poll in Children's Health this month with regard to the race and ethnicity of the adults who answered our survey. For example, African American adults tended to prioritize sickle cell and other diseases of the blood higher up on their priority list. In contrast, Hispanic and Latino adults rated causes of infant death substantially higher than other adults did across the country. As we take a look at this priority list from the public regarding children's health research, childhood cancer really jumps out at the top of that list. That is consistent with what we know about childhood cancer, which remains one of the leading causes of death for kids under age 18 every year. It's also consistent with September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and it's clear that the public wants to see as much or more research emphasis on childhood cancer going forward. But let's not forget about the other research topics that the public identified as their priorities. Issues such as diabetes, causes of infant deaths, sickle cell and other blood disorders, those are also key research priorities that the public wants to see continuing emphasis or perhaps even more emphasis than we have today. And that message from the public is critical because the investments we make and our priorities that we have in research today will make the difference in the lives of children tomorrow. [ Music]