(HOUSTON – OCT. 3, 2008) - Texas Children's Hospital is part of a consortium of local researchers, led by Baylor College of Medicine, who will take part in the largest-ever National Institutes of Health study of children. The study will evaluate the long term environmental and genetic effects on youngsters’ health from before conception to age 21 years.

The National Children’s Study (NCS) is the largest such research project ever undertaken in the United States and will involve at least 100,000 youngsters as participants over a 21-year period. Locally, researchers will enroll approximately 1,000 children with future funding to enroll an additional 1,000. The local arm of the study will be called the Harris County Hospitals and Universities National Children’s Study (HC-HUNCS). The NIH granted the consortium a $14.4 million, five-year contract for the Harris County Study location.

“This is such a landmark study of genetic and environmental effects on child health,” said Dr. Claudia Kozinetz, epidemiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital, associate professor of pediatrics at BCM and the principal investigator of the Harris County Study Center. “It begins with the health of women who hope to conceive. It follows pregnant mothers through birth and will follow their children until adulthood. There’s never been a study so encompassing. This will be yet another strong model for collaboration among the top institutes of the Texas Medical Center.”

The local collaborators are BCM and Texas Children’s Hospital, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center at Houston, UT San Antonio, Houston Department of Health and Human Services and Battelle Memorial Institute, a large independent, non-profit research organization.

Researchers will gather environmental and social information from participants including clinical health history, nutrition and demographics. They will gather biologic samples and environmental samples including air, dust and soil from the participants’ environments.

Data collection is expected to begin in Harris County in 2011, once researchers determine the segments of the County for inclusion, said Kozinetz, also director of the Epidemiology Center at Texas Children’s Hospital and BCM.

The Harris County site is one of 36 new and existing study centers that would recruit study volunteers from a total of 72 locations. When it is fully operational, the study is expected to include from 36 to 50 study centers in the planned 105 study locations throughout the United States.“The first phase of the National Children’s Study will center around pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, early infant health and early neurodevelopment,” said Kozinetz.

Kozinetz anticipates a host of ancillary studies to accompany this one, putting Texas Children, BCM and Houston at the forefront of such environmental research. “This is a truly significant endeavor and its findings will benefit all,” said Kozinetz.

Key investigators on the study from Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine include Drs. Stuart Abramson, Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Chantal Caviness, Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Charleta Guillory, Neonatology, Marc Hanfling, General Pediatrics, Lane Strathearn, Developmental Pediatrics, and Kjersti Aagaard-Tillery, OB/Gyn, at Texas Children’s Maternity Center. Other investigators include Drs. Sean Blackwell, Beatrice Selwyn, Ken Sexton, all of UTHSC-H, Drs. Melissa Bondy and Michele Forman of M.D. Anderson, Dr. Cathy Troisi of the HDHHS, Dr. Lowell Sever of the Battelle Memorial Institute and Dr. Karl Eschbach of UTSA.

Funding for this study comes from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For more information on the study, visit nationalchildrensstudy.gov.

About Texas Children's Hospital
Texas Children's Hospital is committed to a community of healthy children by providing the finest pediatric patient care, education and research. Renowned worldwide for its expertise and breakthrough developments in clinical care and research, Texas Children’s is ranked in the top ten best children’s hospitals by U.S. News and World Report. Texas Children’s also operates the nation’s largest primary pediatric care network, with over 40 offices throughout the greater Houston community.  Texas Children’s has embarked on a $1.5 Billion expansion, Vision 2010, which includes a Neurological Research Institute, a comprehensive obstetrics facility focusing on high risk births, and a community hospital in suburban West Houston.