SPH Calendar

What: The National Children’s Study: Design and Measurement Issues

When: Sept. 5, 10 to 11 a.m.

Where: WBOB, Conference Room 364

Michael Davern, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Health Policy & Mgmt, SHADAC Center

Wendy Hellerstedt, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor, EpiCH

Patricia M. McGovern, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Professor Environmental Health Sciences

Charles N. Oberg, M.D., M.P.H.
Associate Professor, EpiCH

School of Public Health, University of Minnesota

Abstract
The National Children’s Study (NCS), funded by the National Institute of Child Health, will be the largest and most comprehensive study of child health ever conducted in the United States. It will examine how environmental, biologic, behavioral, and genetic factors are associated with pregnancy outcomes and with the health and development of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. The NCS is an observational study that will be conducted in 105 locations in the U.S., including Ramsey County. It will include a representative sample of 100,000 women and their offspring. University of Minnesota researchers, in collaboration with health-care and community partners, will administer the Ramsey County site. NCS intends to recruit 25% of the study mothers prior to conception, with the remaining 75 percent identified in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Participants will be selected using a probability sampling of households in Ramsey County, beginning in 2010. Over a four-year period, 1000 women (and their male partners, if available) will be enrolled in the study. The NCS has the potential to identify the environmental, social, and health-care factors that are associated with reproductive health outcomes and child development.

The purpose of this seminar will be to discuss methodological challenges in NCS sampling and exposure and outcome measurement.