Ratul Narain of BEMPU Technologies Private Ltd. in India will develop and test a temperature monitoring baby bracelet to reduce the incidence of hypothermia in newborns. Newborns are unable to regulate their body temperature, and low temperatures can lead to life-debilitating illnesses. Skin-to-skin warming (kangaroo care) can maintain a healthy body temperature, but is not commonly practiced in resource-poor regions in India, where newborn hypothermia rates are high. To address this, they will further develop an inexpensive and simple bracelet to be worn by babies during the first two months of life that sounds an alarm when the baby's temperature gets too low to prompt the parent to respond. Sensitivity and specificity will be optimized, and the bracelet evaluated in field trials.

Abdur Razzaque Sarker from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease in Bangladesh will test whether group prenatal care for women has a positive effect on maternal and child health when compared with traditional one-on-one prenatal care. They hypothesize that prenatal classes with groups of 8-10 women will promote support networks and social interactions, and facilitate learning, thereby improving health outcomes. This will be tested using a prospective study in selected health centers in Bangladesh.

Romeo Montoya of OPS/OMS Honduras in Honduras will test an integrated approach of deworming, education, vitamin A supplements, and improved water quality and sanitation to decrease the incidence and effects of intestinal parasites in school children in Honduras. Intestinal worms are highly prevalent in Honduras and a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. By integrating several treatment strategies together with national vaccination campaigns they hope to broaden coverage to the entire population and reduce costs.

Susana Nery of the University of Queensland in Australia will test whether soil transmitted helminth infections in school children from developing countries can be better controlled by providing deworming and improved hygiene practices to an entire community as opposed to just the schools, which is the current WHO recommendation. They will conduct a pilot study in Timor-Leste by recruiting primary schools and providing the recommended anti-helminthic drug albendazole along with access to improved water and hygiene practices either within the schools or to the local community. The incidence of parasite infections in the school children and the comparative cost of each approach will be evaluated.

Hesham Al-Mekhlafi of the University of Malaya in Malaysia in collaboration with Azal University for Human Development in Yemen will recruit and train youths and young researchers from rural areas in Yemen to teach their communities about preventing and treating specific enteric diseases. Although effective drugs exist for treating intestinal parasitic diseases such as soil-transmitted helminthiasis, many remain endemic in Yemen, particularly in rural populations where knowledge and attitudes towards these diseases are poor. They will select four communities and meet with local leaders to garner support for their project and help raise awareness. The effect of their approach will be evaluated on the incidence and severity of infections.

Sandra McCoy from University of California, Berkeley in the U.S. will analyze whether behavioral priming methods such as associational cues and social influence can promote adherence to HIV treatment in Tanzania. HIV prevalence in Tanzania is high, at 5.1%, and poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy is a major problem due in part to long patient waiting times and stigmatizing attitudes. Behavioral priming involves using a stimulus to indirectly or subconsciously influence behavior. They will hold group discussions with HIV patients and healthcare workers to identify several behavioral priming strategies such as positive feedback cues on health cards, and conduct a pilot study to evaluate their effect on adherence.

Damien Fair of Oregon Health & Science University in the U.S. will determine whether combinations of prenatal and early postnatal stress markers can be used to predict the developmental trajectories of specific cognitive processes known as executive functions, which underlie goal-directed behavior and are important for many social and academic skills. They will use their maternal-infant macaque model to identify stress markers such as maternal nutrition, heart rate, and cortisol levels that correlate with the later development of specific behaviors in offspring, and with brain connectivity at different developmental stages as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. The identified brain imaging and stress markers will also be analyzed using their dataset derived from maternal-infant humans.

Patrick De Boever of VITO in Belgium will study the effects of stress on neurodevelopment in children by building a database of biological markers of the stress response detected in saliva. They will generate comprehensive genetic and epigenetic profiles, such as DNA methylation patterns, of salivary samples taken after laboratory-controlled or environmental stress events from over 1000 children of a range of ages and backgrounds. The aim is to capture developmental changes in stress reactivity over time and use the profiles to predict the course of neurological development.

Nana Coleman of World Vision in the U.S. will teach positive parenting skills such as hugging, reading, and playing to parents in Armenia to promote healthy childhood development. They will exploit their existing network of health care providers and parent support groups to teach better parenting behavior, and integrate it with another program they have been running to improve child and maternal health. They will test whether this holistic strategy is more effective at changing parental behavior and improving childhood nutrition and development than the individual approaches.

James Ransom of IFETP in the U.S. will promote detection and treatment of five neglected tropical diseases in South Sudan by exploiting and further developing an existing health infrastructure that has successfully reduced the incidence of guinea worm disease. They will target two regions with particularly high incidences of the targeted diseases, and train the local health surveillance officers on preventative methods and to provide comprehensive care and treatment. They will also work to educate the public and media about these diseases.

Steff Deprez of Vredeseilanden in Belgium will develop an approach utilizing pattern detection software (SenseMaker) to translate feedback from smallholder farmers directly into quantitative data that can be easily queried by agricultural development program managers and evaluators. They will test their approach on rice, passion fruit and coffee smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan African to evaluate whether they should be included in modern markets. A so-called signification framework will be developed that comprises specific questions for the farmers in a format that allows them to supplement their feedback with additional narrative to facilitate conversion into statistical data. Participatory feedback sessions will also be organized. The entire approach will be cost-effective and designed for up to 3000 participants.

Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski of the University of California, San Francisco in the U.S. is developing an algorithm to measure gestational age from metabolic markers taken during routine newborn screening. Measuring accurate gestational age is important for assessing infant health such as brain development, but it is challenging in developing countries without specialized equipment and expertise. In Phase I, they developed a statistical model using data on 51 metabolic markers from around 730,000 newborns in the U.S. that predicted gestational age at birth within around an average of one week margin of error. In Phase II, they will further adapt and test their algorithm for use in Malawi and Uganda by using existing data from 500 pregnancies in Malawi and 1000 in Uganda, and also determine its value for identifying newborns at risk of neonatal death or complications.