As of this month, all children ages 5 and older can get a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States. It’s a major turning point in the fight against the virus that causes COVID-19, and it’s the best way to protect our children, families, and communities.

I encourage you to visit WeCanDoThis.hhs.gov for information, sharable resources, and outreach tools from the HHS COVID-19 public education campaign, a national initiative to increase public confidence in and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.

How to facilitate uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among children is an urgent research issue. In this issue of the Connector, we highlight a new study from ECHO’s Institutional Development Award States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (ISPCTN), which is currently gathering information about parental attitudes around the COVID-19 vaccine. Our investigators will use the insights from this phase of the study to develop and test the effectiveness of a mobile app to aid in COVID-19 vaccine decision making.

This month’s Connector also provides summaries of recent collaborative ECHO research led by Drs. Nikos Stratakis and Erika Garcia of the University of Southern California on how children with asthma can lower their risk of developing obesity; on research led by Dr. Alison Paquette of Seattle Children’s Research Institute on plasticizer chemicals to which pregnant women are exposed; and by Dr. Katherine Sauder of the University of Colorado Anschutz on inadequate and excessive dietary intakes during pregnancy.