At every step
The landmark National Children’s Study comprehensively monitors children’s health throughout their development.
SPH professors are instrumental in the local arm of the study.
Unprecedented in scope, the federally funded nationwide study will track 105,000 children from birth until age 21—1,000 of them from San Bernardino County, home to LLU.
To follow these local children, an interdisciplinary team of individuals will work together under the leadership of two principal investigators, one of whom is a School of Public Health associate professor, Jayakaran S. Job, MD, DrPH.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime privilege to be a part of this major effort,” says Dr. Job. “We will examine a fairly comprehensive range of genetic, biological, social, cultural, behavioral, and other health factors—this has never been done before in a single study.”
Together with California State University at San Bernardino, LLU will lead this county’s efforts. The two institutions have been given subcontracts to do this by the University of California at Irvine, the main grant recipient for the Southern California Center of the National Children’s Study.
The other principal investigator for San Bernardino County is Kimberley Lakes, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics, University of California, Irvine, and former associate director for pediatric mental health at the Institute for Child Development and Family Relations, Cal State San Bernardino.
“The National Children’s Study provides an incredible opportunity for San Bernardino County and our three institutions,” says Dr. Lakes. “What we learn will help not only children and families in San Bernardino County, but it will also have implications for children throughout the United States and around the world. The study has the potential to help shape child health policies, prevention, and intervention for generations to come.”
Dr. Lakes and Dr. Job are working with James M. Swanson, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine. He is the overall principal investigator for the Southern California Study Center, to which San Bernardino County belongs.
Seeking to determine how genes and the environment interact to affect human health and development, the study will keep record of what the children eat, drink, touch, and breathe. Other factors to be studied include some of the nation’s most pressing health problems, including autism, birth defects, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
The National Children’s Study will follow families from different parts of the country, including varying ethnic, racial, social, economic, and religious backgrounds. Locations across the United States are being entered into the study in a staggered fashion; San Bernardino County officially enters in October 2008.
The federal award for the first four years of the San Bernardino study is $10.77 million, with more funding to follow throughout the 21-year life of the study.
Researchers will first recruit women who are pregnant or likely to have a child in the near future, follow their prenatal health, and collect information on their pregnancies including diets, environments, stress, and chemical exposures. When the children are born, and periodically thereafter, researchers will track these children throughout the next 21 years of their lives and also collect biological and environmental samples.
Results of the study will be made public as the study progresses. Even though the study spans more than two decades, researchers will begin to analyze data as soon as it is collected and will release findings as children in the study reach certain developmental milestones.
The local team headed by Dr. Job and Dr. Lakes will be involved in all aspects of the study, from sample design to clinical examinations to sophisticated data analysis—and everything in between.
“We may also have the opportunity to add some new areas of research that are of local relevance and interest,” says Dr. Job.
In addition to Dr. Job, two other faculty members from LLU School of Public Health are participating in the study: Pramil Singh, DrPH, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics, and Seth Wiafe, MPH, an assistant professor in the department of environmental and occupational health.
Mr. Wiafe is working as the local team’s geographic information systems (GIS) specialist. His services will be needed during the sampling and selection of segments for the study area.
Dr. Singh is serving as an epidemiologist on the study. He will help ensure that the final sample of 1,000 children accurately reflects the diversity of the local population.
He says that the study presents a unique opportunity for LLU to contribute to knowledge about children’s growth and development.
“My department has an excellent track record of following populations for long periods of time to assess health outcomes,” says Dr. Singh. “We have done this in large-scale NIH [National Institutes of Health] studies of Seventh-day Adventists for almost 50 years. This study is a chance to apply that expertise to a sample of children from our local community.”
Other investigators on the local team are Richard Chinnock, MD, chair, department of pediatrics, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital; Bryan Oshiro, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, Loma Linda University School of Medicine; and Sybil Carrere, PhD, director, Institute of Child Development and Family Relations, California State University, San Bernardino.
The National Children’s Study relies on a unique, overarching public-private partnership involving government agencies, public organizations, private companies, universities, academic and professional societies, health care institutions, private groups, and most importantly, communities, according to Dr. Job.
Along with Cal State San Bernardino, the School of Public Health will also be working with the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, First 5 of San Bernardino, the Children’s Network, various hospitals and health care providers, and numerous other local organizations in the region.
The National Children’s Study began in 2000 under the Children’s Health Act.
