Waukesha County to live under microscope
It's among a handful chosen for a national health study
By Susanne Quick
squick@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 29, 2005
A future generation of Waukesha County residents will be recruited as part of
the largest study ever undertaken to monitor and assess environmental effects on
children. The National Children's Study, funded by the National Institutes of
Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental
Protection Agency, announced Thursday that Waukesha County would become one of
six pilot study centers awarded with the responsibility to kick off the study.
The study will follow children from the womb - and in some cases pre-conception
- to adulthood. Study designers hope the program eventually will expand to
include 100,000 children at 105 centers selected to represent various
geographical, ethnic and socioeconomic regions in the country.
But it's the initial pilot sites that will set the tone and pave the way for the
rest of the study.
The Waukesha portion of the study hopes to draw 1,200 participants.
 The
principal investigators of the Waukesha site are from the Medical College of
Wisconsin and the Waisman Center at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They will be supported by other local and state organizations, including the
state Department of Health and Family Services, the National Opinion Research
Center, Marquette University, UW Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences
Center/ Institute for Environmental Health, the Children's Research Institute,
the Children's Service Society of Wisconsin and others.
"The only way to mount a study of this magnitude and complexity is to involve
the expertise and resources of a broad coalition of community and academic
partners," said
Maureen Durkin, associate professor of population health sciences at
UW-Madison, and one of the co-investigators on the project.
She has high hopes for the outcome, she said, adding that the study is expected
to allow researchers and health care officials to "determine the root causes of
many childhood and adult diseases."
Other communities selected as pilot sites include:
• Orange County, Calif., with research led by the University of California,
Irvine.
• Duplin County, N.C.; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
• Queens County, N.Y.; Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
• Montgomery County, Pa.; Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Drexel
University.
• Salt Lake County, Utah; University of Utah.
The awardees were announced at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
"This study is not just an exercise in trying to satisfy our scientific
curiosity," said Dixie Snider of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
which is co-sponsoring the study with the NIH and the Environmental Protection
Agency. "We're going to use the results to improve the health of our
population."
In Waukesha, recruitment will not start until 2007. In the meantime, study
collaborators will reach out to the community in order to understand residents'
health concerns and interests.
They will try to coordinate the project so that community groups and individuals
will have a voice in the direction of the project.
Christine Cronk, associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical College, said
the goal is to recruit women of childbearing age. Organizers would like to
include women who want to have children and women who don't, because nearly 50%
of all pregnancies are unplanned.
Children of women who become pregnant will be monitored throughout pregnancy and
beyond. In-home data collection, questionnaires and blood samples will be taken
from participants.
Researchers say the first results of the study could appear as early as 2010.
Of particular interest to study designers are the environmental and genetic
determinants that lead to conditions such as diabetes, asthma, premature birth,
obesity and other conditions related to childhood.
"We'll look at the foods they eat, the air they breathe," the dust in their home
and anything else that might affect a child's development, said Duane Alexander,
director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, of the
National Institutes of Health.
The project is estimated to cost $2.7 billion over the next 25 years. The
current UW and Medical College contract is for $16.2 million, and that is
expected to be extended as funding permits.
Other local collaborators in the project include Waukesha County Health and
Human Services, ProHealth Care, Covenant Health Care, Community Memorial
Hospital, Waukesha Family Practice Center and La Casa de Esperanza.
"I have high hopes for this study," said Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who
mentioned that 2005 was the year of the healthy child. This study "may very well
usher in the century of the healthy American."
More information about the study can be found at: www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov.
|
