Alarming surges in incidence of nearly all chronic diseases among children and teenagers has prompted federal agencies to fund the most ambitious and far-reaching children’s health research program ever conducted in the US, or anywhere else for that matter.
The National Children’s Study (NCS) is a data-driven, evidence-based, community and participant-informed study that will examine the effects of genetics as well as diverse environmental factors⎯air, water, diet, sound, family dynamics, community and cultural influences ⎯on the growth, development, and health of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until they turn 21.
“The goal of the Study is to improve the health and well-being of American children for generations to 
come, and contribute to understanding the role that various factors have on health and disease,” says Dr. Neal Halfon, principal investigator for the Los Angeles-Ventura Study Center of the NCS, and director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities. “We hope to gain understanding on how events and exposures early in life can lead to specific outcomes.”
In recent years, serious chronic conditions during childhood have increased in number and in reach across the United States. For example, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), asthma prevalence rates among children are at historically high levels following dramatic increases from 1980 to the late 1990s. There were 7 million children diagnosed with asthma in 2009. Additionally, the CDC states that obesity prevalence among children and adolescents has almost tripled since 1980. These are just two of many examples.
Awareness of these alarming trends became the catalyst for government health agencies to put in place initiatives to learn more about patterns of childhood conditions, and to develop strategies to turn these numbers around.
The NCS began in response to the Children’s Health Act of 2000, when Congress directed the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and other federal agencies to undertake a long-term national study of children’s health and development in relation to environmental exposures. A group of more than 2,000 scientists from across the U.S. have been designing and planning the study for the past several years.
“Long-term research programs are extremely important to the advancement of medicine and have the potential to give the medical community in-depth insight on the subject matter,” says Dr. Michael Lu, lead investigator for the Los Angeles-Ventura Study Center of the NCS and UCLA Associate Professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “For example, the Framingham Heart Study, which began its research in 1948, resulted in a wealth of findings -such as that cigarette smoking and high cholesterol increase the risk of heart disease- that has since saved millions of lives. We are hoping to get similar results with the National Children’s Study.”
The lead force in the NCS is the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in collaboration with a consortium of federal partners including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The study will be conducted at105 locations across the US, selected using a scientifically based sampling technique to ensure that children and families from diverse ethnic, racial, economic, religious, geographic, and social groups are represented. The study sample will permit statistically valid generalizations about the nation as a whole, as well as detailed analyses of specific subpopulations. The recruitment area may include whole counties or specific neighborhoods.
The UCLA Center is leading the research in California’s Los Angeles and Ventura counties. This study center is hoping to recruit a total of 5,000 participants (4,000 in Los Angeles and 1,000 in Ventura) from a total of 56 randomly selected segments in the next several years.
Study participants will be asked to answer questions through periodic surveys. The study staff will visit with families at their homes, at other places where children spend much time, and at the local Study Center.
“This data may help establish links between children’s environments and children’s health. By taking a long-term view of children from birth to adulthood, we hope to learn more about how children grow healthy and how this leads to healthy adults.” explains Dr. Calvin Hobel, co-principal investigator for the Los Angeles-Ventura Study Center of the NCS and vice chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Participating in the National Children’s Study provides a unique opportunity to families across the nation to be a part of a landmark health effort. These families can have a major impact on the health of future generations, helping their communities and country to gain a better understanding of children’s overall health and development. Findings from the Study will benefit all Americans by providing researchers, health care professionals, and public health officials with information from which to develop prevention strategies, health and safety guidelines, guide future research and influence policy.
“We healthcare professionals are in a unique position to support NCS,” says Dr. Halfon. ‘By spreading the word to our colleagues about the potential impact and benefits of the Study on our country’s health and health care, and encouraging our patients to be part of this initiative, we will be contributing to a healthier tomorrow, for generations to come.”
Dr. Hobel added that, “This is an historic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will advance our understanding of the common and rare disorders of childhood and the help of the members of the medical community is an absolute essential part of the process.”
For additional information, please visit the Los Angeles-Ventura Study Center website at http://UCLA.NationalChildrensStudy.gov.
