examining children’s health
The Yale School of Public Health has received a $15 million grant to take part in a national study that will follow 100,000
children from before birth to age 21 to understand factors that contribute
to their health and development.
The study, believed to be the largest of its kind ever undertaken, is a collaboration
between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. The goal is to seek information that can be used to prevent
and treat some of the nation’s most pressing health problems, including
autism, birth defects, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. The study is funded
by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
“The National Children’s Study is poised to identify the early antecedents
of a broad array of diseases that affect both children and adults,” says
Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Such
insights will lead to the means to successfully treat and even prevent conditions
that to date have defied our best efforts.”
School of Medicine Dean Dr. Robert Alpern, says, “I am delighted that Yale
will serve as one of the study centers in this important cohort of children.
Receipt of this award is a tribute to the quality of the investigators and to
Yale.”
Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, says the researchers will examine “not only
what children are eating and drinking, but what’s in the air they breathe,
what’s in the dust in their homes, and their possible exposures to chemicals
from materials used to construct their homes and schools.”
The researchers also will analyze blood and other biological samples from study
participants to test for exposure to environmental factors that might influence
their health.
In this first phase of funding, 22 study centers were selected to oversee 26
locations. Ultimately, there will be three rounds of funding, and the study will
include 105 study locations in urban and rural areas. The study centers were
chosen for their strong ability to collect data for the study and to build extensive
community networks for recruiting eligible women and newborns, as well as a demonstrated
capability to protect the privacy of the information collected on participants.
The centers include universities, hospitals and health departments.
The Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology will
conduct the study in collaboration with Yale’s Departments of Obstetrics
and Gynecology, and Pediatrics, under the direction of Michael Bracken, principal
investigator and professor of epidemiology and public health, and Kathleen Belanger,
research scientist.
The Yale center currently is studying asthma, from pregnancy and early infancy
to childhood. These studies evaluate genetic, perinatal and environmental risk
factors that lead to early onset and more severe asthma in children and young
adults. Studies are also being conducted on the causes of preeclampsia, which
continues to be a leading factor in morbidity in pregnancy; the relationship
between emotional health and pregnancy outcome, and the effects of air pollution
on asthmatic symptoms and infant development.
“Enrolling families in a study that will follow their children for 20 years
is both exciting and challenging,” Belanger says. “The support our
center has traditionally received from community hospitals and community based
obstetricians and pediatricians makes this study possible.”
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IN MEMORIAM
Deno Geanakoplos: One of world’s foremost Byzantine scholars
Felix Zweig: Former dean’s impact still felt in Yale engineering today
Exhibit examines post-war effort to halt the spread of communism . . .
Campus Notes
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