UW-Madison, Medical College of Wisconsin to lead $16 million children’s health initiative

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 long-term study is to improve the health and well-being of children.

The study calls for recruiting women of childbearing age and following their offspring from either 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.

Two units in the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) – the department of pediatrics and the Children’s Research Institute – and UW–Madison’s Waisman Center are lead partners in this five-year, $16.2 million contract. Christine E. Cronk, associate professor of pediatrics at MCW, and Maureen Durkin, associate professor of population health sciences at UW–Madison, are 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 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,” says Durkin. Projected outcomes are high, she says. “We expect to determine the root causes of many childhood and adult diseases.”

Other collaborators in the Wisconsin effort include the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, the National Opinion Research Center, Marquette University, UW-Milwaukee Center for Urban Initiatives Research, UW Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center/Institute for Environmental Health, the Children’s Service Society of Wisconsin, and a number of other schools and departments at UW–Madison.

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 progresses.

Waukesha County is one of six Vanguard sites in the nation. The other sites selected include Queens, N.Y.; Orange County, Calif.; Salt Lake County, Utah; Duplin County, N.C.; and Montgomery County, Penn. Together, they will enroll participants from 105 locations.

According to Cronk: “This study greatly increases our ability to detect environmental health effects on children, and will allow us to focus on key health problems (e.g. asthma) that affect children living in Wisconsin. 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, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency join the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in planning and conducting this study. The study is unique in its broad national approach to the environment and its 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 begins on Oct. 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 childbearing age will need to be recruited.

Additionally, recruitment will be done through prenatal and pediatric care providers’ offices and other health-related venues. 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.