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What is the National Children’s Study?
Who are the National Children’s Study partners?
What will we learn from the Study?
How will the Study be conducted?
Who is conducting the Study in North Carolina?
What is the Study timeline?
What is the difference between a Study Center and a Study location?
How were Duplin and Durham counties selected for the Study?
Who can join the Study?
What will women get for participating 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.
Who are the National Children’s Study partners?
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 Children's Study is led by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in collaboration with a consortium of federal government partners. Study partners include the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
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.
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.
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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.
Who is conducting the study in North Carolina?
A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), Duke University, and Battelle Memorial Institute are working together to plan and implement the study in multiple counties in North Carolina. This team is made up of researchers, clinicians, and data collection experts who have an interest in improving the health of families and their children. The project is coordinated at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill.
What is the Study timeline?
Families have joined, or enrolled, in the Study in some communities since 2009. Other communities will begin enrolling families over the coming years. Each child will be followed from birth to age 21.
Families have been joining the Study in Duplin County, North Carolina since early 2009 and in Durham County, North Carolina since early 2011.
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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 cities 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.
A map and list of all Study locations can be found at http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/studylocations/.
How were Duplin and Durham counties selected for the Study?
All Study Locations were selected at random using a probability-based method to ensure that children and families across the nation - from diverse ethnic, racial, economic, religious, geographic, and social groups - are proportionally represented in the Study. The Study Locations selected include 79 metropolitan areas (urban, suburban, and small cities), and 26 rural communities.
Who can join the Study?
Women who live in one of the 150 Study locations and become 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, visit Community Involvement.
To find out more information about participating in the Study, visit our Participants information or contact your local Study location.
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What will women get for participating in the Study?
Families enrolled in the study will be compensated a modest amount of money for their time and energies with monetary and non-monetary incentives.
How can I get involved in the Study?
Here are some ways you can get involved in the Study.
- Participants: Women who live in one of the 105 previously selected Study locations and become pregnant within a 4- to 5-year enrollment period may volunteer to join the Study. North Carolina residents can contact the North Carolina Study Center for more information and to find out if you are eligible.
- Job Opportunities: There are often jobs available at the National Children’s Study.