Improving the health care of this nation's infants, children, and adolescents has been a priority of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since its inception as a national philanthropy in 1972. The foundation has awarded grants totaling almost $243 million, approximately 22% of the foundation's overall grant-making to date, to programs whose aim is to improve the health of infants, children, and adolescents.
The foundation has used three major strategies in its child health efforts: service demonstrations to develop and test new models of care, research to improve the knowledge base and assess the efficacy of its service demonstrations, and training to better prepare health care providers to address common child health problems. Given the foundation's mission to improve the health care system, and particularly its long-standing interest in improving access to care, more than two thirds of its child health funding has supported service projects targeting underserved children.
The foundation's