What is the National Children’s Study? What will we learn from the Study? How will the Study be conducted? What is the Study timeline? What is the difference between a Study Center and a Study location? Who is sponsoring the Study? Who can participate in the Study? How can I get involved in the Study?
What is the National Children’s Study?
The National Children’s Study is the largest long-term study of how the environment and genes affect children’s health ever done in the United States. It will follow 100,000 children from before they are born until they turn 21. Study researchers hope to better understand how children’s genes and their environments work together to affect their health and development. In the Study, “environment” means things such as: air, water, and house dust; what children eat; how they are cared for; the safety of their neighborhoods; and how often they see a doctor.
What will we learn from the Study?
The Study will look at important health issues like birth defects and pregnancy-related problems; injuries; asthma; obesity; diabetes; and behavior, learning, and mental health disorders to find links between children’s environments and their health. By studying children over different parts of their lives, the Study hopes to find the causes of many childhood and adult diseases. Findings from the Study will help all Americans by giving researchers, health care providers, and public health officials information to develop prevention strategies, health and safety guidelines, and possibly new treatments and cures for disease.
How will the Study be conducted?
The Study will be run in 105 locations (counties or groups of counties) across the United States. All locations were chosen to make sure that all kinds of children and families from across the nation are fairly represented in the Study. This includes people from different ethnic, racial, economic, religious, geographic, and social groups. In these locations, Study teams will work with health care professionals and community leaders to recruit women who are pregnant or are likely to become pregnant in the near future for participation in the Study. Most families will be recruited through contact at their home. Others will join through their local physicians’ offices, health clinics, and hospitals.
In the beginning, researchers will collect information on women’s pregnancies, including their diets, environments, chemical exposures, and emotional stress. When their children are born, and at different times during their lives, researchers will collect biologic samples and environmental samples like air, water, and dust from their environments. Researchers will meet with families in both their homes and in clinical settings, and data also will be collected over the telephone or by the computer or mail-in questionnaires.
What is the Study timeline?
Families will join the Study (or enroll) beginning in some communities in the winter of 2009. Other communities will begin enrolling families over the coming years. Each child will be followed from birth to age 21.
The New York-Northern New Jersey NCS Center will begin recruitment in Queens in January 2009.
What is the difference between a Study Center and a Study location?
Families who participate in the National Children’s Study will come from 105 Study locations (counties or groups of counties) across the United States. The Study locations include 79 metropolitan areas of different sizes, as well as 26 rural communities. All Study locations will enroll women who are either pregnant or likely to have a child during the recruitment period.
Study Centers (PDF 42 KB) are research teams from nearby universities, hospitals, or other organizations that carry out the research at Study locations. Most Centers will manage operations at more than one Study location. They will work within their designated Study location(s) to sign up participants and collect data. There will eventually be 30-50 Study Centers in all.
New York-Northern New Jersey NCS Center will conduct the Study in eight locations throughout New York and New Jersey, including: Queens, Nassau County, Manhattan, Passaic County, Monroe County, and Brooklyn, Middlesex and Warren Counties.
A map and list of all Study locations can be found at http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/studylocations/.
Who is sponsoring the Study?
The Children’s Health Act of 2000 authorized the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and a group of federal agencies to conduct the National Children’s Study.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) join NICHD in planning and conducting this Study. NICHD and NIEHS are both part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the biomedical research arm of the federal government. Both CDC and NIH fall under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the main federal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. EPA is the arm of the federal government that protects human health and the environment.
These departments and agencies are dedicated to working together to improve the health of our nation’s children through the successful completion of the National Children’s Study.
Who can participate in the Study?
Any woman of child bearing age who lives in one of the 105 Study locations and becomes pregnant during the enrollment period may volunteer to be part of the Study.
These locations include U.S. counties or groups of counties from across the country, and participants will be from many different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. The recruitment area may include whole counties, or be as small as specific neighborhoods. For more details on how these locations were selected, see Community Involvement.
To find out more information about participating in the Study, see our Participants information or contact your local Study location.
How can I get involved in the Study?
There are many ways you can get involved in the Study.
- Participants: Women who live in one of the 105 previously selected Study locations can volunteer to participate in the Study. Contact your location at (877) QVC-NYNJ ((877) 782-6965) for more information and to find out if you are eligible.
- Volunteers: There are many volunteer opportunities available with the Study. See our Volunteer information for more details.
- Job Opportunities: There are often jobs available at the National Children’s Study. For more details, see the National or local Job Opportunities pages.
Please check this page in the near future for updated Frequently Asked Questions.
If you have any questions that have not been answered here, please contact Elise Barrow, MPH at (877) QVC-NYNJ ((877) 782-6965).
You can also read additional National Children's Study FAQ’s here.