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Community Corner

County on Cutting Edge of National Health Study

Current generation of children expected to have shorter lifespan than their parents.

It's no secret that the health of American children has been on a steady decline over recent years, but did you know that the current generation of school children has the unfortunate distinction of being the first to have a lesser life-expectancy than that of its parents?

In an effort to uncover some answers, a long-term observational study is currently underway, with more than 250 residents from Montgomery County already participating in the research.

"[The National Children's Study] was a congressional mandate in the Children's Health Act of 2000," said Kaitlin Lord, Community Outreach Liaison for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia study center. "President Clinton mandated that a study be developed to look at why children's health has been continuing to get worse."

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"Statistics show that this will be the first year where current school children are the first generation not expected to live as long as their parents," Lord added.

Implemented by the National Institutes of Health, the National Children's Study seeks to determine what effects the environment is having on children's health. The study features an incredibly broad scope, examining everything from dust and air quality to lifestyle and community and cultural influences.

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The environmental data will then be compared to the number of localized cases of various childhood illnesses, such as diabetes, asthma, ADHD, autism, and many others.

"We're trying to find out if there are things in the environment that are influencing a particular child's genetic makeup that would predispose them to certain conditions," said Lord. "It's the largest study of children's health that has been done in the United States."

In total, the NCS will monitor 100,000 children divided into 105 different study locations, but due to the sheer size of the study, participation and locations need to be rolled out in phases.

Montgomery County was one of the initial seven locations chosen to begin the study in 2009, and currently has more than 250 participants.

"We recruit women who are either pregnant, or thinking about becoming pregnant, and they go through a consent process," said Lord, who added that they're not currently recruiting.

Once the consent process has been finalized, the study will take sample collections from the participant's home, as well as blood samples and urine samples from the participant.

When the participant is going into labor, the study center at C.H.O.P. is notified so they can collect samples of the umbilical cord blood as well as the placenta, though Lord points out that the participant can opt out of any sample they're uncomfortable with.

From that point on, personnel from the NCS will monitor the child from birth through their 21st birthday, scheduling in-home visits or phone calls twice a year. As the child ages and development begins to slow, so do the visits.

The NCS does not provide any medical advice or treatment to the participant, as it is an observational study and exterior involvement could corrupt the data.

"We're strictly observing women in their everyday lives, so we're not asking them to take any medications or change their behaviors or anything like that," said Lord. "We're not allowed to offer medical advice or suggestions for treatment, since that would compromise the study."

In the end, the group will sift through the mountains of data in the hopes that they'll be able to find cause or correlation between environmental factors and specific illnesses.

"Hopefully we'll be able to say 'If you live here, you'll be at risk for this'," said Lord.

For additional information on the National Children's Study, visit http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov

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