Project Grant R01HD119090

The University of California, Irvine received a $620,013 Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), effective July 1, 2026, through April 30, 2031. This award funds a longitudinal research study examining the long-term effects of Baby Books 2 (BB2)—an evidence-based, low-cost educational intervention delivered during early childhood—into middle childhood outcomes. Building on prior NIH-funded research demonstrating that embedding anticipatory guidance information into baby books improved parental knowledge, maternal practices, and child language development, this project will follow children and families to determine whether early intervention benefits persist and how impacts vary across diverse parental populations and characteristics through extended follow-up assessment.

The research deliverables include longitudinal data collection, analysis of long-term developmental and behavioral outcomes during middle childhood, examination of differential intervention effects across demographic subgroups, and peer-reviewed publications advancing understanding of how early parental education interventions may produce sustained effects on child cognitive and social-emotional development. This study addresses an underresearched question regarding the durability of early intervention effects and contributes to the broader scientific evidence base on population-level caregiver education methods in pediatric primary care settings.