NAHIC: The National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center was based within the University of California (UCSF), San Francisco’s Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.

To improve adolescent and young adult health, NAHIC worked at the intersection of public health, systems of care and clinical practice, through research and synthesis, and dissemination, networking and partnering, particularly with state MCH Programs.

HISTORY

NAHIC was established in 1994 with funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), Health Services and Resources Administration, in the Department of Health and Human Services.  MCHB funded NAHIC shortly after creating an office focused on adolescent health, one of three overarching recommendations from the 1992 Congressional Office of Technology Report on Adolescent Health.

For three decades, NAHIC expanded with additional projects, supported primarily by MCHB and taken leadership in many areas, for example highlighting young adult health. NAHIC faculty and staff served as key players in nearly every major federal adolescent and young adult initiative since 1993.

NAHIC was honored as the 2006 recipient of the Society for Adolescent Medicine’s Millar Award for Innovative Approaches to Adolescent Health Care.

In 2014 two new projects strengthened NAHIC’s partnerships with state MCH programs and with researchers in adolescent and young adult health.

First, the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Resource Center (AYAH-NRC) (2014-2023) aimed to improve adolescent and young adult health by strengthening the capacity of state MCH programs and their clinical partners to address the needs of AYAs.

Building on NAHIC’s expertise in clinical preventive services, the AYAH-NRC focused on increasing the delivery of and improving the quality of preventive services among adolescents and young adults, with a special focus on mental/behavioral health screening and follow-up. Learn more about AYAH-NRC’s core partners and many resources.

Second, the Adolescent and Young Adult Health Research Network (AYAH-RN, 2014-present), aims to maintain a transdisciplinary, multi-site research network that will:

• accelerate the translation of science into practice;
• promote scientific collaboration; and
• develop additional research capacity in the AYA health field.

Learn more about the AYAN-RN.