The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is seeking innovative ways to increase breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates and decrease disparities among breastfeeding mothers in the United States.

OWH is creating a national competition to identify effective, pre-existing programs that increase breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates and decrease disparities among breastfeeding mothers in the United States. The goal of this innovative competition is to demonstrate sustainability and the ability to replicate and/or expand a program that has proven outcomes to improve breastfeeding rates and reduce disparities. The program must demonstrate evidence-based interventions to target gaps in breastfeeding education, instruction, and/or support for breastfeeding mothers in the United States. The program will be shared with the general public.

The competition has three phases. All eligible submissions will be evaluated, and separate prizes may be awarded for each of the three phases.

Submissions for Phase 1 of the competition (Identification of successful programs) are due by October 30, 2020.

For more information:
https://www.challenge.gov/challenge/reducing-disparities-breastfeeding-innovation-challenge/

WHEN: October 1, 2020 (12:00 pm-1:00 pm EDT)
WHERE: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population-development/event/social-demography-seminar-online-5/
COST: Free

The Social Demography Seminars, sponsored by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (HCPDS), provide a forum for social science scholars to discuss in-progress research that touches on timely topics such as health and social inequalities, race and ethnicity, aging and life course, gender, immigration and migration, and other population health themes. In the wake of COVID-19, these seminars are transitioning to an online format this fall, and can now reach a much wider audience.

The presenter, Allison Daminger, is a PhD student in sociology & social policy at Harvard University.

WHEN: September 17, 2020 (12:00 pm-1:00 pm EDT)
WHERE: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population-development/event/social-demography-seminar-online-2/
COST: Free

The Social Demography Seminars, sponsored by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (HCPDS), provide a forum for social science scholars to discuss in-progress research that touches on timely topics such as health and social inequalities, race and ethnicity, aging and life course, gender, immigration and migration, and other population health themes. In the wake of COVID-19, these seminars are transitioning to an online format this fall, and can now reach a much wider audience.

The presenter, Roland Neil, is a PhD candidate in sociology at Harvard University.

DemSemX is a cross-center virtual collaboration among population research centers at 9 universities (Bowling Green, Brown, Cornell, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Texas, UCLA and UW-Madison), designed to enhance scholarly interaction and graduate training across institutions.

On Friday, August 21^st, 3-4 pm ET, each center will host a virtual breakout room, where 2 students will provide brief presentations on their research, and 2 faculty will serve as respondents.

For more information about this event visit : https://cde.wisc.edu/event/demsemx_aug2020/