Diabetes Dateline
Winter 2009

NIH News

National Children’s Study Begins Recruiting Volunteers

Recruitment for the pilot testing phase of the National Children’s Study began in January 2009 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Queens, NY—two of seven vanguard study centers. When fully operational, the study will comprise about 40 study centers, recruiting volunteers from 105 study locations throughout the United States.

The National Children’s Study will follow a representative national sample of 100,000 children from before birth to age 21 to investigate factors influencing the development of such conditions as autism, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, birth defects, asthma, obesity, and diabetes.

“The principal benefit of a large-scale, long-term study like the National Children’s Study is that it will uncover important health information at virtually every phase of life,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of a consortium of federal agencies implementing the study. Also involved are the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The study centers will recruit participants; collect genetic, biological, and environmental samples; and compile statistical information for study analyses on the relationships between health, genetics, and the environment. The centers consist of universities, hospitals, health departments, and private companies or represent collaborations between these kinds of organizations.

All-encompassing

“The National Children’s Study will encompass a nationally representative sample, designed to be a composite of the U.S. population,” said Alexander. “It will include children throughout the United States, from rural, urban, and suburban areas, from all income and educational levels, and from all racial groups.”

Five more vanguard study centers are scheduled to begin recruitment for additional pilot testing in April 2009. If congressional funding is received as anticipated, the remaining study centers will begin the first wave of recruitment in the summer of 2010.

Although the study can be expected to provide information throughout its duration, information about early life disorders and conditions is expected within the next few years. Because the study will enroll pregnant women and, in some cases, women who are not yet pregnant, study scientists hope to identify a range of early life factors that influence later development.

“With more than 100,000 participants, we believe the National Children’s Study will be the largest study of pregnant women ever conducted in the United States,” said National Children’s Study Director Peter Scheidt, M.D., M.P.H. “We expect the study to yield information on a variety of pregnancy- and birth-associated conditions.”

Additional information about the National Children’s Study is available from www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov. For a chart of the funded study centers and their corresponding locations, go to www.nichd.nih.gov/centers2008/upload/centers2008.pdf.

NIH Publication No. 09–4562
March 2009

[Top]