National Children's Study Launched

A consortium of community organizations and academic institutions in Wisconsin will participate in the largest long-term study of the environment's effects on human health and development ever conducted in the United States. The goal of the study is to improve the health and well-being of children.

The study calls for recruiting women of child-bearing age and following their offspring from preconception or during the first or second trimester, until age 21. The National Children's Study plans on enrolling 100,000 children nationwide, including 1,200 children from Waukesha County.

The National Children's Study Waukesha County Vanguard Center contract was awarded to the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Waisman Center in collaboration with the Children's Research Institute of Children's Hospital and Health Systems; Marquette University (Colleges of Nursing and Communication); Children's Service Society of Wisconsin; National Opinion Research Center; and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Science Center).

The five-year, $16.2 million contract will be led by Christine E. Cronk, ScD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and Maureen Durkin, PhD, DrPH, Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences at UW-Madison, the co-principal investigators.

The Study Center or Vanguard site in Waukesha is an unprecedented collaboration between Wisconsin institutions for the benefit of children, according to Dr. Durkin.

"The only way to mount a study of this magnitude and complexity is to involve the expertise and resources of a broad coalition of community and academic partners," said Dr. Durkin. Projected outcomes are high, she said. "We expect to determine the root causes of many childhood and adult diseases."

In addition, the Waukesha County Health and Human Services, ProHealth Care, Covenant Health Care, Community Memorial Hospital, Waukesha Family Practice Center, Casa de Esperanza, and medical practices serving Waukesha County residents will be integrally involved in study activities. Other community agencies and medical and health practices will be engaged in the study as it moves forward.

Waukesha County is one of six Vanguard sites in the nation. The other sites selected include Queens, New York; Orange County, California; Salt Lake County, Utah; Duplin County, North Carolina; and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Together they will enroll participants from 105 locations.

"This study greatly increases our ability to detect environmental health effects on children, and will allow us to focus on key health problems (such as asthma) that affect children living in Wisconsin," said Dr. Cronk. "Children are thought to be especially endangered by environmental exposures. However, only a large, long-term study can detect these effects."

The study was mandated by Title X of the Children's Health Act of 2000 to examine the effects of environmental influences on child health and development. The study defines "environment" broadly and will evaluate effects of natural and man-made environmental factors; biological and chemical factors; physical surroundings; social factors; behavioral influences and outcomes; genetics; cultural and family influences and differences; and geographic locations.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) join the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in planning and conducting this study. The study is unique in its national approach, broad approach to the environment and long-term design.

By studying children through their different phases of growth and development, researchers will be better able to understand the role of these factors on health and disease. Planning for the prospective study began on October 1, 2005, and will continue to June 30, 2007. Teams of individuals from the collaborating and supporting organizations and other community members will coordinate their efforts to ensure that methods are standardized across all sites.

A community-wide campaign in Waukesha County will inform citizens about the study and solicit feedback. Following this planning phase, the consortium will actively begin implementing the recruitment and data collection phase of the study from July 1, 2007, to Sept. 30, 2010.

The study will recruit women of childbearing age who are residents of Waukesha County. Recruitment of participants will include door-to-door screening of specific parts of Waukesha County to ensure statistical representation of the sample of children. To reach the target sample size of 1,250 live births, significantly more women of child bearing age will need to be recruited.

Additionally, recruitment will be done through prenatal and pediatric care providers' offices and other health-related venues (WIC, County Public Health). Most of the studies will be done in the homes of participants and will include measurements of growth, exposures and biochemical measurements.

Findings from the study will be made available as soon as possible as the research progresses. According to the co-investigators, the National Children's Study will be one of the richest information resources available for answering questions related to children's health and development and will form the basis of child health guidance, interventions and policy for generations to come.

Additional information about the National Children's Study can be found on the project's website.

This article originally appeared in Medical College of Wisconsin World.

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.