Title V Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant
Request for Public Input on Maternal & Child Health Goals and Activities

Officials with the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) are seeking comments from the public regarding the federal grant that provides important health services to mothers and children.

Comments must be received by June 29, 2012.

What is Title V and the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant?

The Title V MCH Block Grant is administered through the Bureau of Family Health, within IDPH. It allows IDPH to assure access to preventive and primary health care for mothers, infants, children, and children with special health care needs. Title V also facilitates collaboration in assessing the health status of Iowa's communities and families.

Title V of the Social Security Act of 1935 established the maternal and child health programs designed to improve the health of mothers and children. It supports programs that help mothers give birth to healthy babies and promotes access to medical and dental care for children as they grow and develop.

Title V MCH programs work with local public health departments, community-based organizations, statewide organizations, and private providers to assure quality health services are provided to mothers, children and families in Iowa. The major focus areas include:

• Promoting the health of mothers and children by ensuring access to quality maternal health and child health preventive health services (including oral health care), especially for low-income families or families with limited availability of health services
• Providing care coordination services to assist families access appropriate medical and dental homes for preventive and specialty care
• Reducing infant mortality and the incidence of preventable diseases and disabling conditions
• Increasing the number of children appropriately immunized against disease
• Providing and promoting family-centered, community-based, coordinated care for children and youth with special health care needs and facilitating the development of community-based systems of service for children and their families.

What are Iowa's Title V Priorities, Needs, and Proposed Activities?

The Title V Block Grant is a federal-state partnership to address 18 National Performance Measures (NPM) and 8 State Performance Measures (SPM). The following documents contain the draft, proposed NPM and SPM reports for federal fiscal year 2013:

• National Performance Measures  
• State Performance Measures  

You can make a difference in the health of women, children, and families!

One requirement of the Title V Block Grant is to gain public input concerning priorities, needs, and proposed program activities. State priorities were chosen for the five year grant period based on the 2005 Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey, Iowa MCH2015 (Iowa's five-year MCH needs assessment), and emerging issues for the MCH population. Your input is important at all times to help IDPH understand how well programs are working.

Whether you want to comment specifically on the Title V Block Grant and the state's activities related to that or you want to comment more generally on the needs of children and families, your interest and willingness to provide input is appreciated. Note that when comments are reported, they are summarized so that people making them are not identified.

This year, IDPH will be utilizing Survey Monkey to collect feedback related to the NPMs and SPMs. In the online survey:

• If you are responding to a specific measure or priority from the MCH Block Grant, please use the comment section for the specific NPM or SPM.
• If you have a general comment, concern, resource, or idea to which you want to draw our attention, use the general comments/question area at the end of the survey.
• If you don't have any comment or question, complete the survey by selecting the option that you "do not have comments/questions".

Submit your comments or questions by June 29, 2012. Click here to complete the feedback survey.