The National Institutes of Health awarded an $18.5 million National Children’s Study research contract to a consortium of leading healthcare systems, state and local health agencies, and top research universities in Michigan including WSU, U of M, and project leader, MSU. This project will study how the environment affects the health and development of children. Wayne State University will receive over $6 million from the study, and Dr. Robert Sokol will lead Wayne State’s efforts and Dr. William Lyman will lead Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s efforts in this collaborative study. 

The National Children’s Study (NCS), the largest national children’s health study of its kind, will monitor the health of more than 100,000 children nationally from before birth to age 21. Michigan’s study sample size represents a population of 5,000 and Michigan researchers will recruit and monitor approximately 1,000 participants in Wayne County for the initial phase of the program.

Michigan State University will lead Michigan’s role in the project, and Dr. Nigel Paneth, an MSU professor of epidemiology, and pediatrics and human development, will direct the study.

Project collaborators include MSU, the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Henry Ford Health System, Michigan Department of Community Health, and Wayne County and the city of Detroit health departments.

“No children’s health study of this size or scope has ever been undertaken,” according to Paneth. “The results should provide critical information about environmental influences and effects on the health of children.”

The first phase will focus on Wayne County, and in the future it is anticipated that the study will include four other Michigan counties that were selected to be among 105 counties representing the U.S. in the NCS: Genesee, Grand Traverse, Lenawee and Macomb counties.

Planning for this project began in 2002 when MSU and the other partners formed the Michigan Alliance for the National Children’s Study, or MANCS. Each institution will play a specific role in the study:

• WSU will oversee the assessment and care of pregnant women.
• U of M will be responsible for enrolling and interviewing study participants and assessing post-natal child development.
• MSU will coordinate the overall work of the study, and house the project at its East Lansing campus. MSU Extension will help develop community support for the study.
• Children’s Hospital of Michigan will serve as the repository for biological samples.
• Henry Ford Health System will serve as the repository for environmental samples and will perform medical examinations of children.
• Michigan Department of Community Health will provide information related to live birth characteristics and locations in Wayne County.

This comprehensive national study of children’s health is the largest ever embarked, and it is expected that it will be especially important to the health of Michigan children, leading to new ways of treating and preventing disease in our children and to new public health progams in our state.