U of L Joins Decades-Long National Children's Health Study

University of Louisville public health researchers have been chosen to participate in the nation’s largest study ever to look at environmental influences on children’s health and development.  The National Institutes of Health-led National Children’s Study will follow 100,000 children from conception through the age of 21.  A representative sampling of women of child-bearing age will be chosen in Jefferson County.  U of L pediatrics professor Dr. Deborah Davis says they’ll be hiring and training a significant number of fieldworkers to help collect information.“There’ll be a lot of data collectors out in the field.  Now for Jefferson County we will be enrolling enough women to have a thousand children followed," says Davis.Davis says researchers will take blood samples and ultrasounds from pregnant women.  And they’ll continue to visit children once they’re born to collect a wide variety of health data over the years.  Scientists will also collect a variety of environmental samples where the child lives.