Health Resources and Services Administration October 30, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) plans to move forward in implementing annual changes to the State Title V MCH Block Grant allocations, beginning in Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, using the U.S. Census Bureau's 3-year American Community Survey (ACS) poverty estimates. Title V MCH Block Grant funds are currently allocated to states based in part on a calculation of the number of children living in poverty (in an individual state) as compared to the total number of children living in poverty in the United States. Historically, data for the number of children in poverty in each state came from the Decennial Census. As the Census Bureau has replaced the Decennial Census long- form sample questionnaire with the ACS, MCHB plans to use the ACS as its source for this data. In order to maintain balance between precision and currency, annual changes to the State Title V MCH Block Grant allocations will be based on a rolling average of the 3-year ACS poverty estimates. Yearly changes in the MCH Block Grant allocations for individual states will be buffered by the use of shared data for two of the three data years in the rolling period estimate. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACS is the best source of survey-based state-level income and poverty estimates. Moreover, ACS child poverty estimates are produced annually, and their use will allow the Block Grant allocation proportions to be updated more frequently than every 10 years.