Waukesha County participants needed for National Children’s Study

The nation is about to embark upon a landmark epidemiological study of environmental and genetic influences on children’s health, and Waukesha County residents are being tapped to participate in the effort.

Known as the National Children’s Study (NCS), the project will track 100,000 children nationwide, including 1,250 from Waukesha County, one of the population centers the researchers selected during their probability-sampling process. Congress authorized the study as part of the Children’s Health Act of 2000, and the National Institutes of Health is leading the effort. Locally, the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a variety of research and community partners will gather data.

This spring, NCS staff will go door-to-door in selected Waukesha County communities, recruiting participants and sharing information about the study. Families in eligible neighborhoods will receive a letter about the study before recruiters visit their homes.

Women planning to have a child, as well as those in the first trimester of a pregnancy, may be eligible to enroll. Researchers will follow NCS-enrolled children until they reach age 21, gathering data about a wide range of perinatal and pediatric conditions, including pre-term birth, asthma, autism, diabetes, obesity and congenital heart defects. Researchers anticipate that the study will help improve pregnancy outcomes, as well as the medical community’s understanding of child health and development. Study participants will not undergo any experiments, they will be compensated for taking part in the study, and all information gathered will be confidential.

While physicians have not been asked to recruit participants directly, they can assist by learning about the study, answering patients’ questions about it and displaying study-recruitment materials their offices. In addition, a Community Practice Partners Program is being established to help doctors educate their patients about the study and its aims.

For more information about the study or the Community Practice Partners Program, contact Katie Miller, the NCS’s Waukesha County Community Liaison, at 414.955.2229. Details about the study are also available here.