# Universal strengths-based parenting support in pediatric health care for families with very young children following the Flint Water Crisis > **NIH NIH R01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2021 · $177,211 ## Abstract ABSTRACT Public health disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic have disproportionate impacts on poor communities, through pathways that add to those of poverty and racism, and act over extended periods. Young children are vulnerable to long-term impacts on development and mental health yet receive the least attention and resources. Ample evidence suggests that targeting positive parenting can prevent poverty-related disparities, but study following disasters including COVID-19 has been limited, with none to our knowledge following multiple disasters. Flint, Michigan has one of the US's highest rates of poverty, and has been affected by 2 separate disasters: the Flint Water Crisis (FWC) beginning in 2014, and COVID-19 in 2020. In the FWC, failure to treat corrosive river- water resulted in lead contamination of the water supply and increased blood lead levels in children. Community- level trauma is ongoing, due to both anxiety about lead effects on child development and anger about a crisis perceived as avoidable and rooted in racial and socioeconomic bias. COVID-19 has had the greatest impact in racial and ethnic minority communities in the US, which have had the highest per capita rates of infection, the highest mortality rates, and the greatest economic impacts, and Flint has been severely affected. We are presently conducting an NICHD-funded study (R01 HD096909) in Flint that provides a unique opportunity to understand the role of parenting programs in buffering against multiple disasters, which we propose to leverage in this urgent competing revision. The study is an RCT of a parenting intervention (Video Interaction Project; [VIP]), which targets parenting assets and vulnerabilities likely to act as compensatory factors in the context of disaster-related stress. The R01 seeks to characterize impacts of the FWC at the community- and family level, and test whether exposure and experience of the FWC moderated VIP impacts on families. The current competitive revision would add to the original aims of the R01 through: 1) community-level analyses of COVID-19 experience and exposure, which together with analyses of the FWC will provide a comprehensive description of risk and resilience; and 2) quantitative (PhenX) and qualitative/mixed methods to assess COVID- 19 family health and economic impacts, adding to existing measures after birth, and age 9 and 18 months. This revision will allow us to examine the impacts of community/family exposure to COVID-19 compounding the FWC across pre-existing risk related to poverty, racism, as well as potential protective contributions of VIP in promoting parent adjustment, parent-child relational health, and child psychosocial outcomes. Findings from the proposed revision will advance scientific knowledge regarding society's most vulnerable yet highly under-studied families of color living in poverty and inform our ability to prevent the heightening of such vulnerabilities in the context of poverty and COVID-19. ... ## Key facts - **NIH application ID:** 10233438 - **Project number:** 3R01HD096909-03S1 - **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE - **Principal Investigator:** ALAN L. MENDELSOHN - **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.) - **Funding institute:** NIH - **Fiscal year:** 2021 - **Award amount:** $177,211 - **Award type:** 3 - **Project period:** 2019-03-01 → 2024-02-29 ## Primary source NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10233438 ## Citation > US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10233438, Universal strengths-based parenting support in pediatric health care for families with very young children following the Flint Water Crisis (3R01HD096909-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-08 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10233438. Licensed CC0. --- *[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*