Benton County to Participate in National Children’s Health Study

Benton County has been selected to participate in what researchers predict will be the most comprehensive children’s health study ever conducted.

The National Children’s Study, led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will follow 100,000 children across the nation from birth to early adulthood.

Benton County was one of 105 counties in the country randomly chosen as a study site.

The Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Little Rock received a $14.4 million grant from the National Institute of Health to facilitate the study in Benton County.

Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, director of the Arkansas Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention at the research institute, said researchers are hoping the landmark study will help find determinates of health problems in children.

By examining the biological, environmental and social factors involved even before the mother gets pregnant, she said, the hope is that researchers will help explain some of the most common problems in early childhood, such as prematurity, asthma, diabetes and obesity.

Hobbs will be in charge of the Benton County study center, which will initially be based at the Centers for Children in Lowell.

Researches will recruit 1,000 women from Benton County who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant within three years.

The study will follow the children through pregnancy and the different phases of growth and development, through age 21.

Before the study begins, researchers will divide Benton County into 10 to 15 geographic segments. Preliminary research will determine the number of women of childbearing age in each segment.

Hobbs said the first step is to engage the community by holding three focus group meetings in the first year to inform residents about the study.

“We want to learn from community members what is important about Benton County, what do they think will help us engage women so they see this as something they would like to participate in,” she said.

Dr. Curtis Lowery, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said the study is a massive undertaking, unlike anything that’s been done before.

Lowery, who, along with other UAMS researchers, will work with Hobbs on the study, said there have been several short-term studies conducted with pregnant women. The studies may follow the mother and child a few months to a year following the birth.

But until now, he said, there haven’t been many long-term studies tracking the mother and child.

“This a very well organized study,” he said. “It involves a lot of collaboration and it’s going to be very powerful, it should be a great benefit for our people.”

Lowery said the study will reveal the impacts of genetics and environment on a child, beginning in the earliest developmental stage – when the child is in utero.

“It’s the earliest preventive health care you can get,” he said.

The environment that a child is exposed to as a fetus can impact the child’s development.

The fetus of a diabetic mother, for example, is exposed to high levels of glucose, which can lead to congenital problems at birth.

“Clearly there are things that happen inside the womb that affect the way we adapt,” he said. “The more exposure we get, the greater impact it has on how we develop.”

The study will examine the negative results of these different environments, Lowery said.

“The next step would be: can we change the outcome?”