Welcome to the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center Study Center for the National Children’s Study and our home in Lamar County. The Center is staffed by the North Texas Children’s Study Coalition, which is led by UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and includes UT Health Sciences Center Tyler, UT Health Sciences Center Houston School of Public Health, and Battelle Memorial Institute. Our Study location, Lamar County, can be described as a mixture of urban west and warm southern charm. About 50,000 people live in the county, which is located in Northeast Texas about 100 miles from Dallas near the Texas/Oklahoma border. The county seat is Paris.
Dr. George Lister, principal investigator and chairman of pediatrics at UT Southwestern, leads the North Texas Children’s Study Coalition with Dr. Debra Cherry, occupational medicine physician at the UT Health Science Center Tyler, as the location principal investigator.
Lamar County is among the first of ten counties chosen to use a provider-based recruitment process. Rather than going door-to-door to enroll participants, local coalition members have identified health care providers who can help recruit women who are either pregnant or likely to become pregnant in the near future.
Since the Study is an observational research study rather than a clinical trial, participants will not be asked to change their day-to-day routines or take any medicines or drugs. Staff will initially collect data on women’s pregnancies, such as the participant’s diet, chemical exposure, and emotional stress. Once the children are born, the researchers will begin collecting information about the child’s health and environment.
Although the Study will span more than 20 years, results will be made public as the research progresses.
For more information, please contact:
Mignon Murray, M.B.A.
Administrator & Communications Coordinator
214-648-8801
or
E-mail your name and telephone number to: ncsoperations@uthct.edu