Overview

The Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) initiative was launched in 1999 by The Commonwealth Fund and is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of the health care system to support the early development of children from low-income families. As part of ABCD, the Commonwealth Fund awarded a grant to the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) to help states improve the delivery of early childhood development services to children through their Medicaid programs.

Medicaid agencies in four states (North Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Washington) were selected to participate in the first phase of the ABCD initiative, which began in early 2000 and concluded in May 2003. Over the past three years, the four states participating in the ABCD Consortium have focused on a range of early child health and development services and on strategies for delivering them.

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