Child Health Advocacy Institute

Child Health Advocacy Institute (current page)
Clark Parent and Child Network
Meet the Team

Our Mission

Through leadership and collaboration, the CHAI advances policy and systems changes to achieve health equity for all children. The CHAI operationalizes this definition and our mission to advance health equity through our five departments and four core focus areas: community engagement, data, education and policy.

Children’s National Hospital became the first pediatric hospital in the nation to form an in-house advocacy institute. The belief at the time was that in order to create an environment where children could grow up to fulfill their potential, a cohort of advocates was necessary to ensure systems and policy did not ignore the needs of the region’s smallest residents. That mission is even more important today. In 2007, Children’s National became home to the country’s first hospital-based department focused exclusively on child health advocacy, the Child Health Advocacy Institute (CHAI).

We demonstrate our commitment to children and families by investing significant resources and services through our:

Community Benefit Program

Community Health Needs Assessment

The Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) identifies key health needs through systematic, comprehensive data collection, community engagement and analysis. An assessment is conducted every three years.

The 2022 CHNA, titled “Growing Up Stronger: The Impact of Neighborhood Conditions on Child Opportunity", conducted in partnership with the HSC Health Care System, focuses on place-based inequities in child opportunity within our hospital’s primary service area. We worked in partnership with our community and used the “Child Opportunity Index” to guide this work. The four key needs identified in the CHNA are: early childhood education, healthy food, health insurance coverage and employment.

Download Community Health Needs Assessment (PDF).