Both institutions are partnering for the local recruitment phase of the National Children’s Study, a nationwide effort funded through the National Institute of Health. The study, which was formally launched this week, will last 25 years, encompass more than 105 sites across the country and will include an estimated 1000,000 children as participants.
The budget for the local study will be $13.5 million for the next five years.
“No such study has ever been conducted in the U.S. or elsewhere,” said Dana Dabelea, principal investigator in the local study and a professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. “By following the plan of 100,000 children before they are born until they are 21, the study helps to understand how genetics and environment interact in determining health and disease.
“(It’s) from the social environment, the biochemical environment, the air, the water, what they eat, how they’recared for, everything,” she added.
Locally, the CSPH and the CU School of Medicine will team up with the Battelle Memorial Institute to find participants in Douglas County. Specifically, organizers will seek women who are or may become pregnant within the next few years. In the study’s first phases, subjects will answer questionnaires regarding the learning environments, play environments and health history of their children.
These initial questionnaires may be followed up with later visits to clinics, where participants will provide blood and urine samples, along with items like tap water and house dust from their homes.
While the study is slated to span a quarter of a century, Dabelea said researchers will start producing viable data much sooner.
“It’s really very exciting for a researcher to be a part of the study. Do we have to wait 21 years to get results? No we don’t,” Dabelea said, adding that the data can offer insights to everything from diabetes to childhood cancers. “Certain things can be studied within the next five years ... We don’t have to wait 21 years for everything.”
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