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  • Materials & Tools
    ​Bright Futures Guidelines provides a common framework for well-child care from birth to age 21.​
  • Clinical Practice
    With Bright Futures, health care professionals can accomplish 4 tasks in 18 minutes!
  • States & Communities
    Put Bright Futures into practice to promote health at the state and community levels.
  • Families
    Families use Bright Futures as a framework to partner with professionals about children’s health.
Bright Futures


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Bright Futures is a national health promotion and prevention initiative, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics and supported, in part, by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)​, Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). The Bright Futures Guidelines provide theory-based and evidence-driven guidance for all preventive care screenings and well-child visits. Bright Futures content can be incorporated into many public health programs such as home visiting, child care, school-based health clinics, and many others. Materials developed especially for families are also available.​​​

About Bright Futures

  • For Professionals

    • Bright Futures/AAP Periodicity Schedule

      Updated March 2021 Recommendations for preventive pediatric health care in practice.Download PDF

    • Pediatric Residency Resource Library

      This resource library features a diverse set of resources to help to strengthen clinical practice, stay current with the latest practice trends, build clinical and leadership skills, and connect with other areas around the AAP. Learn more

    • Bright Futures Implementation Tip Sheets

      These NEW and UPDATED tip sheets offer practical advice to help you integrate the Bright Futures approach, tools and resources into your daily practice.Learn more

    • Bright Futures Tool and Resource Kit, 2nd Edition

      Completely updated Toolkit corresponding with the Bright Futures Guidelines, 4th Edition, with key documents that work as an integrated system to assist a health care professional carry out an efficient Bright Futures health supervision visit.Learn more

    • Bright Futures Guidelines, 4th Edition

      At your fingertips, this manual provides the most respected recommendations for the top 12 areas of child development in 1 volume, along with the most up-to-date well-child supervision standards by visit. PDF versions are now available for reference.Learn more

    • Medical Screening Reference Tables

      The tables provide an easy-to-use reference table for each Bright Futures well-child visit. Each table compiles the relevant history, risk assessment questions, and action to take if the risk assessment shows a positive result.Learn more

    • Bright Futures Webinars

      Learn about the revised and updated Bright Futures Guidelines, 4th Edition from the editors themselves as well as other relevant topics. Learn more

    • Implementing Bright Futures in Public Health

      Professionals can hear recorded audio stories of Bright Futures implementations and read highlights of how Bright Futures is being used by state agencies as the standard for well-child care and as essential content throughout many public health programs. Learn more
  • For Families

    • Well-Child Visits: Parent and Patient Education

      The parent-focused education is available for each well-child visit. The child-focused education is available from the 7 Year through the 21 Year visit. All of the information is written to be easy to read and understand, in both English and Spanish.Learn more

    • The Well-Child Visit: Why Go and What to Expect

      This NEW handout, The Well-Child Visit: Why Go and What to Expect, helps families prepare for their regular check-ups. This tip sheet is available in English and Spanish.Learn more

    • Bright Futures Activity Book, 2nd Edition

      To encourage parent-child interaction, the Bright Futures Activity Book provides a fun, informative, and interactive overview of the 12 themes from the Bright Futures: Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents, 4th Edition.Learn more

 Highlights and Announcements

  • November 24, 2021

    Community Access to Child He​alth (CATCH) Program Call for Proposals is Open!

    The Community Access To Child Health (CATCH) program is a national initiative of the AAP that supports pediatric health care professionals to collaborate within their communities to plan and/or implement projects tha​t advance the health of all children. The CATCH Call for Proposals is open through January 24, 2022 at 11:59 pm CT. Pediatric health care professionals and pediatric residents in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canadian AAP chapters, with innovative ideas to plan or implement initiatives that address critical child health issues in their local communities may apply for $10,000 and $2,000, respectively.

    The Resident Call for Proposals guidelines include targeted funding opportunities on more than 10 topics including oral health, community pediatrics, environmental health, developmental and behavioral pediatrics, emergency medicine, school health, obesity prevention, and child abuse/neglect.
    Questions? Reach out to Chapter CATCH Facilitators, District Resident CATCH Liaisons and CATCH staff for assistance. To learn more about CATCH visit aap.org/CATCH. 


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  • November 23, 2021

    ​Obesity Prevention Virtual QI Project ​- Application Due by 12/3/21
    The AAP Institute for Healthy Childhood Weight is excited to offer Round 3 of the Optimize Infant and Toddler Feeding for Obesity Prevention Project, focused on improving early feeding assessment, counseling and obesity prevention in children under age 2 during well visits, using a comprehensive approach. This brief, all-virtual quality improvement collaborative for pediatric practice/clinic teams will kick off in early February 2022. During the project, participating teams will collaborate with one another and receive education, coaching, and resources from national experts in obesity prevention, assessment, and counseling. Pediatricians who meet participation requirements will be eligible for Maintenance of Certification credits and (if approved) clinical staff will be eligible for CME credits. They are recruiting teams that represent diverse types of practices​​​​/clinics (eg, group or solo practices, Community Health Centers/Federally Qualified Health Centers, medical school-affiliated, government, non-government, or non-profit clinics, etc.), patient populations and geographic locations, that are interested in making practice changes to improve their obesity assessment and prevention care for children under age 2.  Teams will be selected based on a brief, online application. The application period will close on December 3, 2021.

     Click her​e​ for more info. Click here to apply.
    Contact: Stephanie Womack (630-626-6612)
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  • November 23, 2021

    Protect Tiny Teeth Implementation Project - Apply by 11/30/21
    The AAP, through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed the Protect Tin​y Teeth Toolkit to assist pediatric health care professionals to address oral health during routine, non-urgent pediatric and prenatal visits. The AAP invites pediatric health care professionals to participate in a 7-month quality improvement project to assess pediatric professionals' ability to screen, counsel, and refer children to a dental home using the Toolkit and a learning collaborative led by their Project Advisory Committee. Practices will create a plan for implementing Protect Tiny Teeth tools in practice, identify a measurable goal, track, and report outcomes.

    Participating practices will be compensated $4,000 to defray costs and will be provided with the necessary Toolkit materials. (MOC Part 4 continuing education credit approval is pending.) To apply, please complete this application by Tuesday November 30, 2021, by 5 pm CST.
    For additional information, see the attached Request for Applications or contact Maureen Cooney, mcooney@aap.org. 

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  • November 4, 2021

    New Post Alert! #ScreenToInterveneForAYAs Blog Highlights Youth-Led Efforts for Suicide Prevention in American Samoa

    Like many states and jurisdictions across the country, American Samoa has recently experienced a devastating increase in deaths by suicide among young people in the jurisdiction. This blog post highlights how MCH partners in American Samoa leveraged funding from HRSA CARES Act for Maternal and Child Telehealth Capacity in Public Health Systems to fund a local youth organization to produce media and materials promoting the suicide hotline and other available resources. Read the blog post here. You can also sign up to receive updates from the #ScreenToInterveneForAYAs blog. To write a guest post or if you have any questions, please contact Anna Corona (acorona@amchp.org).

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  • November 3, 2021

    New PediaLink Course: Bright Futures - Building Positive Parenting Skills Across Ages

    The Bright Futures National Center is excited to announce the launch of a new PediaLink course titled, Bright Futures - Building Positive Parenting Skills Across Ages​. The purpose of this course is to provide residents, nursing trainees, and other pediatric health care professionals the knowledge and skills to provide parental support and advice. Pediatric health care professionals play a vital role in reinforcing parenting skills by providing developmentally appropriate parenting advice and support as well as modeling parenting skills during the health supervision visit. This course includes scenarios to apply key concepts to address common behavioral concerns and ameliorate parental stress. The course is free to the general public, including non-AAP members. Learners who will only be required to create an AAP login (if they don't already) to obtain access to the course.

    Register Now!​


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  • October 21, 2021

    AAP Food Insecurity ECHO

    AAP will host a Project ECHO learning collaborative on food insecurity. The goal of this ECHO is to enhance practice capacity to identify, refer, and follow-up with families experiencing or nearing food insecurity. This ECHO 9-session learning collaborative will leverage a quality improvement component. For more information, click here. 

    There will be an onboarding meeting Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 12pm ET/11am CT. 
    The program will launch in November 2021 and will meet monthly.

    To register, click here.
    Contact Briana Lemon, Program Manager, ECHO Initiatives blemon@aap.org.

    *No Kid Hungry is a public-private coalition working to end childhood hunger. The partnership between Share Our Strength and the American Academy of Pediatrics is ending childhood hunger by ensuring kids get the food they need.




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