March of Dimes Honored With Research!America Advocacy Award

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Mar 09, 2010, 08:01 ET

Paul G. Rogers Distinguished Organization Advocacy Award

WASHINGTON, March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- March of Dimes will receive Research!America's 2010 Paul G. Rogers Distinguished Organization Advocacy Award. The award recognizes March of Dimes' decades of successful advocacy for maternal and child health research and services.

March of Dimes will be honored March 16, 2010, at the 14th Annual Research!America Advocacy Awards event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. Jennifer L. Howse, Ph.D., March of Dimes president, and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, granddaughter of March of Dimes founder President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, will accept the award.

Established by President Roosevelt in 1938 to conquer polio, for more than 72 years March of Dimes has been a leader in improving the health of women and children. The Foundation invests millions each year in cutting-edge research, supports community-based health services, and advocates on behalf of key national and state-based research agencies and organizations.

For many years the Foundation has been an ardent supporter of the National Institutes of Health and its research mission. March of Dimes was among the original proponents for establishing the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and continues its work to secure funding for NICHD research. More recently, the Foundation worked with Congress on several specific initiatives including enhancing preterm birth research, writing the bill that led to creation of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and initiating both the PREEMIE Act of 2006 and the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act of 2008. Last year, together with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Children's Hospitals, March of Dimes spearheaded the advocacy campaign that led to reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which strengthened coverage for pregnant women and children and set the stage for improving the quality of pediatric care provided through Medicaid and CHIP.

Dr. Howse became president of the March of Dimes Foundation in January 1990. Under her leadership, March of Dimes has doubled its revenue and achieved impressive mission results, including the national campaign that led to Food and Drug Administration approval of fortification of grains and cereals with folic acid, and ongoing work with a national prematurity prevention campaign. Dr. Howse previously held a number of top public service positions and has served as an advisor for the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Commission on Infant Mortality.

Ms. Roosevelt is vice president of Global Corporate Citizenship for Boeing. She has served as executive director of the Brain Research Foundation in Chicago and before that as director of Mayor Daley's Office of Program Development for the City of Chicago. She currently serves on several not-for-profit boards, including as co-chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in New York, and is an honorary trustee of the March of Dimes Foundation.

Hogan & Hartson LLP is the benefactor of Research!America's award to exemplary organizations. The award was named for the former Congressman and renowned advocate for health, The Honorable Paul G. Rogers (1921-2008), Research!America's former chair emeritus.

Other 2010 Research!America Advocacy Award winners are U.S. Representative David Obey; research advocate-philanthropist Ann Lurie; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine board chair Robert Klein, JD; J. David Gladstone Institutes Founding Director Robert Mahley, M.D., Ph.D.; and Geoffrey Beene Foundation Trustee and CEO G. Thompson Hutton, Esq.

Pictures of Dr. Howse, Ms. Roosevelt and the Advocacy Awards event will be available on March 17 at: www.researchamerica.org/march16.

Research!America is the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority. The 2010 Advocacy Awards represent Research!America's 14th year of recognizing the accomplishments of leading advocates for medical and health research. For more information, visit www.researchamerica.org/advocacy_awards.

SOURCE March of Dimes