First Sites Picked For Child-Health Study

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

WASHINGTON -- Mothers-to-be in six states will be the first recruited for the largest study of U.S. children ever performed, aiming to track 100,000 from the womb to age 21 to learn how the environment affects youngsters' health.

Ultimately the government wants 105 communities to participate in the National Children's Study, a quest to prove both what's harmful and what's benign in kids' environments _ from chemicals to diets to toddler TV.

Enrollment won't begin until 2007. In the first six sites, announced Thursday, researchers will spend the next year working with local health groups to determine how to recruit women and babies representative of the communities:

_Orange County, Calif., with research led by the University of California, Irvine.

_Duplin County, N.C.; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

_Queens County, N.Y.; Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

_Montgomery County, Pa.; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Drexel University.

_Salt Lake County, Utah; University of Utah.

_Waukesha County, Wis.; University of Wisconsin-Madison and Medical College of Wisconsin.

The plan is to enroll 1,500 women in early pregnancy or, better, before conception, in each county over a five-year period.

http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/news/e-updates/e_update_092005.cfm

http://www.wral.com/aphealthandwellnewsnews/5037446/detail.html