UCI selected for national study

UC Irvine, in partnership with several Orange County health agencies,

has been named one of six national centers for a federal study on

child health and development.

Over the next five years, UCI is slated to receive $14.6 million

from the National Institutes of Health to help conduct the National

Children’s Study, the largest human health and development study ever

planned in the United States. The project will track children from

birth until age 21, analyzing genetics, diet, neighborhood

environment and other factors that contribute to growth.

Joining UCI in the project are Children’s Hospital of Orange

County, the Children and Families Commission of Orange County and the

County of Orange Health Care Agency.

“This is exciting for UCI, but it’s even more exciting for Orange

County altogether because it really accents the great strengths we

have in research, administration and healthcare,” said Tom Vasich,

UCI’s assistant director of health sciences communications. “To be

identified as one of six places in the entire country for the most

ambitious effort to understand childhood health, it’s a great

achievement for everybody in Orange County.”

The National Institutes of Health chose six communities across the

country as “vanguard centers” for the project, selecting them from a

large pool of applicants. The other initial sites chosen were Salt

Lake County, Utah; Waukesha County, Wis.; Montgomery County, Pa.;

Duplin County, N.C.; and the Queens borough of New York City.

Sarah Keim, the deputy director of the program office for the

National Children’s Study, said Orange County made the initial cut

largely because it offered a cross-section of California lifestyles.

The researchers spaced out the initial group of centers in different

regions of the country to capture a diverse population.

“It has an interesting mix of diversity and socioeconomic groups

and a good, interesting mix between urban and rural, and, of course,

it’s on the West Coast, so it fit the bill in that regard,” Keim

said.

The National Children’s Study is sponsored by a consortium of

federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human

Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ultimately, the study will include 105 communities and follow more

than 100,000 children, with the aim of finding cures and treatments

for autism, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other conditions.

Vasich said he did not yet know when UCI would commence work on

the project. Among the bodies on campus expected to contribute are

the Child Development Center, the Center for Occupational and

Environmental Health and the School of Social Ecology.

Feizal Waffarn, UCI’s chair of pediatrics, said his research team

would contribute by examining mothers before and during pregnancy and

taking biological samples of infants at birth.

“We’re funded to see the child in the first year of life, then

every year for the next five years,” Waffarn said. “After that,

depending on funding, we’ll plan to study the child and family for

the next 20 years.”

Waffarn added that the researchers are considering offering

financial incentives to parents in the program.