Mizzou Pediatrics offers a specialized track in community pediatrics and advocacy for selected PGY-2 and PGY-3 residents to participate in an educational collaborative with pediatric training programs within the state of Missouri.

Child Health Advocacy Residents 2019


Residents participating in the advocacy track gain valuable skills in leadership, media training, grant writing and critical communications. Track residents are given the skillset to build and lead large, multi-disciplinary community and statewide coalitions, assist our partners in state government as content experts and key medical experts to help shape legislative agendas relating to public health and children’s health, and lead efforts within our system to improve the overall health and well-being of our patients and families.

Our residents have:

  • Championed a system-wide food drive that yielded more than $100,000 in donations for the regional food bank
  • Paired with a local representative to pass car seat legislation
  • Served with a statewide immunization advocacy group
  • Organized a White Coats for Black Lives event and worked with the medical students to advocate for curriculum changes
  • Created a health access and mental health video series in nine different languages.
  • Built an integrated health advocate/navigator system for our patients within the pediatric clinics
  • Our current track residents are building a system for better care for foster children within our health system from the emergency department to primary care and increasing education and availability of PrEP to vulnerable populations in Missouri

Advocacy track residents will have dedicated rotations during their second and third years of residency to both acquire the key skills of leadership, project creation, and media training in addition to protected time to advance their identified projects. The residency second clinic has also been converted into dedicated time for the advocacy work.

Graduates from the track and residency programs remain active and engaged members of their community and continue to be strong patient advocates with former Mizzou graduates serving in community organizations, active state legislative advocacy related to Medicaid expansion, mental health, COVID-19 public health measures, and Missouri AAP chapter representation. If you are interested in community pediatrics and continuing in our rich tradition of pediatricians as advocates we would love to have you join us at Mizzou!

Advocacy track Pediatric Residency