Come fall, the nation's largest study of how children's health is affected by environment and family background will kick off in Schuylkill County.

The $3.2 billion National Children's Study, launched in 2007 by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a consortium of federal agencies, is seeking out women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant soon.The study will track the lives and health of 100,000 children in the study centers across the United States, including Schuylkill, Montgomery, Westmoreland and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania, from conception through their 21st birthdays.In Schuylkill County, National Children's Study Community Liaison Lynn Appleby, RN, LSW, CAC, is stationed in an office in Pottsville."We're trying to get the word out," she said.She'll do that by contacting obstetricians' offices, putting up posters and speaking to social groups.Women who are or plan to become pregnant can enroll in the study, but they have to live in certain areas, called segments. The segments, which can include a few blocks of a street in one town and some in the next, are difficult to define, Appleby said.The segments were selected by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for statistical accuracy. In August, representatives from the National Opinion Research Center will be out and about, walking and driving through communities to verify addresses. They will have badges and letters identifying them as working with the study, Appleby said. She has been talking with local police in anticipation of calls from residents suspicious of strange people in the neighborhoods.Initially, about 100 women will be recruited, she said."This initial piece will involve mostly interviews with the women - basic questions," Appleby said. "The women will get a monetary compensation for their time."Initially, there's not much time involved."At this point, what we're seeking to have women become engaged in is not overly burdensome," she said. "A lot of interviews take about 20 minutes."Appleby said women's questions are welcomed, as are suggestions of groups the study personnel could talk to."We would love it if people would spread the word," she said.As the study progresses, doctors will visit the pregnant women, collect specimens of air, water and dust, and gather information from births. They will continue with visits at when the baby turns 6 months old, and then again at 1 year, then every three years thereafter. Researchers will meet with families in both their homes and in clinical settings, and data also will be collected using telephones, computers, or mail-in questionnaires.The study is the largest and most long-reaching of any done in the United States.Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, has said the study will examine the interaction of genetics and the environment and their effects on children's health and development."We want to study the earliest possible environmental exposures to children, so we will begin with recruiting and enrolling women who are in the early stages of their pregnancies and, in some cases, women who are not yet pregnant," he said. "We'll follow the women throughout pregnancy, eventually checking in on the children they will one day bear. We'll conduct periodic evaluations, during pregnancy, at birth, through childhood, and on to the children's 21st year."At each stage, we'll look to unravel the complex relationships between genetics, a broad range of environmental exposures, and the children's health and development. The study will investigate factors influencing the development of conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, birth defects, diabetes, asthma, and obesity."The study will look at environmental factors, including air and water pollution, nutrition, child care and neighborhood safety.Schuylkill is among 105 study "centers" across the nation. The centers are geographically distributed and demographically varied to include families from diverse backgrounds and family structures. That way, the study can better explore issues central to many communities, NIH officials have said.The National Children's Study was authorized by Congress in the Children's Health Act of 2000. In addition to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, other members of the consortium carrying out the study are the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) leads the implementation of the study in Schuylkill and Montgomery counties.