| Lessons Learned for the National Children's Study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Carole A. Kimmel,1 Gwen W. Collman,2 Nigel Fields,3 and Brenda Eskenazi4 1National Children's Study Interagency Coordinating Committee, National Center for Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA; 2Division of Extramural Research and Training, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA; 3National Center for Environmental Research, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA; 4Center for Children's Environmental Health Research, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Abstract
This mini-monograph was developed to highlight the experiences of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) /U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research, focusing particularly on several areas of interest for the National Children's Study. These include general methodologic issues for conducting longitudinal birth cohort studies and community-based participatory research and for measuring air pollution exposures, pesticide exposures, asthma, and neurobehavioral toxicity. Rather than a detailed description of the studies in each of the centers, this series of articles is intended to provide information on the practicalities of conducting such intensive studies and the lessons learned. This explication of lessons learned provides an outstanding opportunity for the planners of the National Children's Study to draw on past experiences that provide information on what has and has not worked when studying diverse multiracial and multiethnic groups of children with unique urban and rural exposures. The Children's Centers have addressed and overcome many hurdles in their efforts to understand the link between environmental exposures and health outcomes as well as interactions between exposures and a variety of social and cultural factors. Some of the major lessons learned include the critical importance of long-term studies for assessing the full range of developmental consequences of environmental exposures, recognition of the unique challenges presented at different life stages for both outcome and exposure measurement, and the importance of ethical issues that must be dealt with in a changing medical and legal environment. It is hoped that these articles will be of value to others who are embarking on studies of children's environmental health. Key words: asthma, autism, children, environmental health, National Children's Study, NIEHS/EPA Children's Centers, obesity, pregnancy. Environ Health Perspect 113:1414-1418 (2005) . doi:10.1289/ehp.7669 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 24 June 2005]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "Lessons Learned from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research for the National Children's Study." Address correspondence to C.A. Kimmel, consultant, National Children's Study, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 6100 Executive Blvd., Suite 5C01, Bethesda, MD 20892-7510 USA. Telephone: (301) 435-3427. Fax: (301) 480-1222. E-mail: kimmelca@mail.nih.gov ; cakim08@comcast.net We acknowledge the support of the National Children's Study in the development of the articles in this mini-monograph. We also thank A. Branum (National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) for assistance in developing the questions to frame the articles in this series, as well as several other members of the National Children's Study Interagency Coordinating Committee and Program Office who kindly reviewed various drafts of the manuscripts. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 12 October 2004 ; accepted 14 March 2005.
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