Children Food Allergies and Holiday Treats in School

Holiday dishes and treats often contain nuts, milk and eggs — three of the top food allergy offenders — which can pose a threat to millions of children with food allergies. According to Dr. Ruchi Gupta, co-investigator of the Greater Chicago Study Center, there are almost two allergic children in every classroom in the United States. Therefore, it is important for schools and parents to be aware of food allergies this time of year, when many children exchange holiday treats  or participate in celebrations in school.

November 12-18, 2012 is CDC's Get Smart About Antibiotics Week!

Fall Craft Activity

We recently sent our Study participants in Cook County a list of fun fall craft activities for kids. Then, we thought, why don't we try to make one ourselves? In this video, our happy volunteers, Peter, Alice and Kristi, show us how to make a scarecrow:





These easy to follow instructions are courtesy of dltk-kids.com:

Materials:

•     toilet paper roll
•     printer,
•     something to color with,
•     scissors,
•     glue, and
•     paper

    

Instructions:

    Print out the template of choice: Color or Black & White

    Color pieces, as necessary.
    
    Cut out the pieces.  This step may require adult assistance.
    
    Glue the large rectangle onto the toilet paper roll.
    
    Glue on the head, arms, legs and body patch.
   
If you want to get a bit more creative, you can glue on some tufts of raffia or dried grass as straw. Or as Peter and Alice did, a string of yarn as a belt.

I hope you enjoy making this scarecrow with your kids! Visit our Facebook page for more pictures or post your own!

October is SIDS Awareness Month

National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month

The National Children's Study Greater Chicago Study Center supports National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month by encouraging Cook County families to take small steps to help each child to stay at a healthy weight.



Elissa Bassler, CEO of Illinois Public Health Institute (IPHI) and Executive Director of the Illinois Alliance to Prevent Obesity, discusses the importance of tackling the issue of childhood obesity, ways in which can parents help overweight or obese children and the role of beverages in the obesity epidemic.



CLOCC's 5-4-3-2-1 Go! message contains recommendations for children (2 and older) and families to promote a healthy lifestyle: 

• 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day
• 4 servings of water a day 
• 3 servings of low-fat dairy a day 
• 2 or less hours of screen time a day 
• 1 or more hours of physical activity a day 

Visit the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) tor more information.

National Immunization Awareness Month

Dr. Rachel Caskey, MD, MaPP, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and General Internal Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-investigator at the National Children's Study Greater Chicago Study Center, answers common questions that parents may have about vaccines.

August is National Immunization Awareness Month

July is National Cord Blood Awareness Month

Dr. Ann Borders MD MSC, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University and co-investigator at the National Children's Study Greater Chicago Study Center, answers common questions that parents may have about cord blood banking.

Our Eyes and Ears in the Field

Two weeks ago, we discussed what brought us together as a group to work to improve the health of future generations of children. This week, we would like to talk about some of the amazing people that have helped us reach out to the community and conduct this work.

When the Greater Chicago Study Center (GCSC) was actively recruiting new people to take part in the National Children's Study (NCS), we engaged community partners to recommend people in their community who could serve as Neighborhood Ambassadors. Our hope was that we could expand our team with people who knew, and who were well known, in their community. Neighborhood Ambassadors would promote and provide information about the NCS at the very local level. They would make connections with community organizations and leaders and identify and attend events through local churches, neighborhood and parent organizations, and health fairs.

We were very lucky to meet five women very involved in their neighborhoods. From a mother who worked part time at a local hair salon, a woman who volunteered at her church, a woman who was a member of a local community organization to two women who had recently completed the Parent Leadership in Action Network as part of the Governor's Neighborhood Recovery Initiative. Besides promoting the NCS in their communities, this outstanding group of women completed the VideoVoice interviews we have been sharing with you on this blog for the last several months.

In this week’s outtake, one of our community partners talks about what were the benefits of having Neighborhood Ambassadors as part of our team:

"Primarily, [they] know what is the basis of the community, what does the community want, what it doesn’t want. I believed that someone who was hired for this role who came from another community, it would have been very difficult to get involved because there’s lack of trust, and when you don’t have trust, you don’t get anywhere. Something that would really help is being persistent. In life, you have to be very persistent. Don’t give up and explain to people. I believe people are going to see it like, “Oh, how lucky, someone is interested in my child, somebody is worried about my child’s health, I’m not alone in this.” So I see it as a positive."

Because the GCSC Neighborhood Ambassadors were an important part of the culture of those they served, they were able to understand how where a person lives and their community influence health behaviors and impacts access to and use of healthcare. In turn, they used this knowledge to encourage participation in the NCS when appropriate. In addition, because of their prior involvement in other community activities, they were able to point out community resources for those who might need them. As we continue our involvement in communities throughout Cook County with NCS participants, community partners and their families, we hope we are able to carry on the important work of the GCSC Neighborhood Ambassadors.

United by Our Interests

Three weeks ago, we released the Community Voices videos and have been really excited about your responses. Hundreds of people have watched our YouTube channel, “Liked” our Facebook page and visited this blog as a result of our campaign. In addition, we have been collecting feedback about our videos at community meetings and events. If you haven’t had a chance to tell us what you think about the videos, please do so here.

When we started reaching out to community agencies all across Cook County to inform them about the National Children’s Study, our goal was to start a two-way conversation. As members of the community, we are well aware how an unhealthy community affects everyone. If we can learn through a long-term study like the NCS how homes, schools, and neighborhoods influence the health and safety of our kids, we believe we could build the evidence that we need to address and potentially prevent many problems. Besides sharing our side of the story, we wanted to hear from community leaders, parents, teachers, healthcare providers, and others about protecting and improving the health of their communities.

In the past couple of weeks, we have talked about the importance of longitudinal studies and the role of participants. In this week’s outtake, one of our partners shares her story regarding her work in the community:




We wanted to find a common ground for the entire community to come together around the NCS. As people who live and work in Cook County, we all want our kids to grow up in a healthy environment. By this, we mean we want them to have access to high quality schools, clean water, stores with fresh produce, and safe parks where they can be active, among many other things. As NCS data become available, it will be used to analyze the effect on health of genetics, personal choice and the environment that could ultimately be used to develop programs and policies that protect the health of our families and communities for years to come.

Our Number One Priority: Study Participants

During the course of our interviews with people who live and work across Cook County, we asked women if they would consider participating in the National Children’s Study (NCS). All of the women with whom we spoke overwhelmingly said “yes” to volunteering for the NCS.  In this week’s post, you can see a sample of those responses:



Regardless of where they are in life (some of them are mothers, some do not have children, others are planning to have children), women throughout the region always ask, what does participation in the NCS entail?

During active recruitment, our main message to women who enrolled in the NCS was that they would be part of a pioneering group of women who would join a national effort to ultimately improve children’s health. We are very thankful to all of our participants who answered the call and continue to be involved in Study activities. All of us should be very proud of our participants because their contribution is invaluable to future generations. Besides the real possibility of helping improve children’s health, our participants joined the NCS because:

1.    They only have to give the Study a small amount of their time.
Participation occurs through periodic visits and phone calls with National Children’s Study staff before and during pregnancy, and as their children grow. Our colleagues at the Cumberland County Maine Study Center have written a series of blog posts detailing what happens at each study visit. Take a look here.

2.    The NCS does not interfere with their life.
The National Children’s Study is not a substitute for regular doctor visits for our moms or their children. Participants won’t be asked to take any medications or treatments.

3.    Participants can decide what information to share.
If they are ever uncomfortable answering a question or participating in any part of a Study visit, they can opt out. If life is too busy, they can take a break and rejoin the Study when it better fits their schedule.

4.    Participants can move to a new home or out of Cook County and still be a part of the Study.
Study participants needed to live in one of several randomly chosen communities in Cook County only when they enrolled. If they move out of town or across the country, they can still be involved in the NCS.

5.    They are part of a ground-breaking study.
As we discussed in last week’s post, no other study has looked at how a wide range of environmental exposures impact children’s health beginning with pregnancy over the long-term. Previous adult studies did not consider whether environmental factors might have a different impact on children.

6.    They receive a small amount of money for their time. 
We recognize the commitment participants are making to improve the health and well-being of children. We are providing compensation and thank-you gifts for participating in the Study.

7.    Participants can change the world!
Doctors, scientists, health agencies and community organizations that work with children could ultimately use information from the Study to improve how we prevent and treat children’s health problems. We can’t stress enough that participation in the National Children’s Study will make a difference for generations to come.

Here for the Long Haul

If you ever stop by our table at a community event, one of the things that you will hear us talk about repeatedly is how big and how long the National Children’s Study (NCS) is. The NCS is simply the largest and longest study of women and children ever to be conducted in the United States. We have never had a study this big, that lasts this long, or that asks this many questions about mothers’ and children’s health. Studying so many children and pregnant women before, during and after their pregnancy for 21 years may help us answer questions about pregnancy and children’s health.

Why is such a long-term study needed? 

Scientists call long-term studies like the NCS “longitudinal.” Longitudinal studies are generally big undertakings, requiring large numbers of study participants and use of extensive resources for their planning and execution. Longitudinal studies are often considered to give very good results, because they are so long and can look at many different parts of people’s lives. Longitudinal studies are useful for studying changes in individuals over time in contrast to surveys, which provide a snapshot at a single point in time. Time, however, is itself one of the most important explanations of change. Therefore, longitudinal studies can give answers to questions concerning change that one-time surveys cannot.

By following children and families for 21 years or more, the NCS will collect information about health at different ages and stages of growth and in various situations, to possibly shed light on the factors that influence health and development as people grow.

As promised in last week’s post, for the next several weeks, we will be posting some outtakes that did not make it into our final set of Videovoice videos. In this week’s clip, Dr. Clavier talks about the importance of longitudinal studies:

As you heard, other large and long-term studies have really made a difference in our understanding of adult health. For example, the willingness of people in a small town in Massachusetts – Framingham – to take part in a study for more than 20 years showed us why smoking is bad for health, among many other things. To learn more about the Framingham study, check out this blog post.

Other studies have given us some clues about children’s health, but none of them was large enough or lasted long enough to give us the information we really need to understand more about children’s health and well-being. The NCS is different. Because the NCS starts before babies are even born and continues until they are young adults, it can tell us a lot more about what really matters when it comes to what makes kids healthy, makes them sick, or what keeps them safe.

The NCS offers our community the opportunity to take part in the largest long-term study of children ever. An unhealthy community affects everyone. If we can learn through a long-term study how homes, schools, and neighborhoods influence the health and safety of kids, we can perhaps address and prevent many health problems.

Community Voices

Seven months ago, the Greater Chicago Study Center (GCSC) embarked on a journey to engage our community partners to find out their thoughts and opinions about children’s health and the National Children’s Study (NCS). First, we asked community partners to recommend local parents active in their communities through volunteering, PTA, school council or other activities. We asked these parents to be GCSC Neighborhood Ambassadors and help advocate for the Study in their local communities.  For the next few weeks, we gathered as a group and gained knowledge and skills in filmmaking and interviewing. If you followed our postings on this blog between October 2011 and February 2012, you were able to see some of the progress that we made in reaching out to individuals all around Cook County. It quickly became evident that the time spent conducting these interviews about our children’s health concerns constituted a rewarding experience for all.

Since February, we have been very busy reviewing the many hours of footage filmed by our Neighborhood Ambassadors in an effort to distill them into concise informational videos. We learned much about some of the main health concerns shared by communities about Cook County children, including asthma, obesity, and diabetes. Some parents shared their personal stories regarding their own children being afflicted by some of these conditions. Additionally, local residents declared their excitement about the NCS because the Study is going to take a closer look at the environment where children are growing up and its relationship to children’s well-being. In fact, the holistic approach to environment, as well as the length and size of the Study, is what distinguishes the NCS from other studies. All of the people whom we approached were eager to express their support for the NCS because they understand its tremendous potential to improve the health of future generations.

After months of hard work, the GCSC is proud to launch Community Voices, two awareness campaign videos in English and Spanish as the result of our VideoVoice project:

We would love to hear your comments about the videos. Please click here to answer a short survey about the video.

As you can imagine, many interesting interviews did not make it into this final set of videos. Check back here next week, as we will post some of them for you.

As part of our mission at the Greater Chicago Study Center, we are committed to addressing issues related to health and well-being of children and their families. We thank you for helping us ensure the success of the National Children’s Study in Cook County.

May 14 - 18, 2012 is Food Allergy Awareness Week!

In observance of Food Allergy Awareness Week, the National Children’s Study Greater Chicago Study Center included a short Food Allergy Awareness Quiz in our monthly newsletter.

Here's where you can find the answers:

1. Food allergies can be cured with allergy shots.

False: There is no cure for food allergies. Avoiding the food is the only way to prevent an allergic reaction.



2. Milk is a common food allergen.

True: Milk is a common allergen. People who are allergic to milk must avoid cheese (pizza), ice cream, butter, yogurt, and all other foods that contain milk.


3. It’s okay to test if a food is safe by licking it or taking a tiny bite.

False: Even a tiny lick or bite of a food can cause a reaction. People with a food allergy must read the ingredient statement before eating a food.


4. If a person is having an allergic reaction you should not let them go off alone.

True: Sometimes symptoms start out mild, and the person might think it’s okay to go off alone. But, things can quickly get worse, so stick with them in case your help is needed.

For more information about food allergies, please visit the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN).

Text4baby Fights Pertussis with Innovative Technology

In celebration of 2012 National Infant Immunization Week, which emphasizes the importance of protecting infants from vaccine-preventable diseases, we have a guest blog post this week from the Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition:

Text4baby Fights Pertussis with Innovative Technology

By Kathy Waligora, Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition

Since 2010, Text4baby, the first ever FREE mobile health service, has been using cell phones to share health tips with pregnant women and new moms. Moms sign up by texting BABY to 511411 (or BEBE to 511411 to receive messages in Spanish) to receive helpful messages that are timed to their due date or baby’s first birthday. These messages include reminders about check-ups, immunizations, oral health, and tips for good nutrition.

Evaluation of text4baby finds that it is increasing users’ health knowledge, facilitating interaction with their health providers, improving their adherence to appointments and immunizations and improving their access to health services. Below is a summary of preliminary evaluation findings from an evaluation conducted in San Diego, CA:

•    63.1% reported that text4baby helped them remember an appointment or immunization that they or their child needed

•    71.3% of participants reported talking to their doctor about a topic that they read on a text4baby message 

•    53.3% of participants without health insurance reported calling a service number.

Given the success of this program, the recent announcement that text4baby is adding targeted pertussis immunization information is being celebrated within public health circles. To demonstrate how effective these simple text messages are when it comes to improving immunization rates, text4baby has added additional pertussis messages for subscribers in Illinois, and six other states, aimed at stopping the spread of this deadly disease.  Messages like “You & anyone who cares for your baby need a whooping cough shot. The flu shot too during flu season. Call 800-232-4636 to find out where to get them” are simple for parents to understand and provide clear instruction that could have an invaluable impact on the life of their child.

  The Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition is the statewide coordinator for text4baby and we have been working with health departments, community clinics, doctors’ offices and local businesses to promote this important public health tool. To date we have helped to enroll nearly 15,000 users and have made FREE outreach materials available for order from our website.

Even if you don’t need text4baby outreach materials, we hope that you will consider sharing this information with your colleagues, family, and friends. With your help, we can ensure that more women, children, and their families have the best opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives.

April is Autism Awareness Month

Molly Losh, Ph.D., Jane and Michael Hoffman Assistant Professor from Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University discusses the importance of early screening and early intervention for parents who are worried about their child’s development.

Dr. Losh’s research focuses on delineating the nature and basis of language impairment in autism and related neurobiological disorders. Her studies adopt clinical-behavioral and family-genetic methods and designs to characterize patterns of language strengths and weaknesses that define particular disorders, and examine ties to neuropsychological and genetic underpinnings.

For our National Autism Awareness Month feature, she takes on the following questions: How does a child's autism diagnosis affect a family? Should parents consider complementary and alternative therapies for their autistic child? Is there a true rise in the incidence of autism in the US? and she offers some helpful suggestions.

Autism Awareness

March is National Nutrition Month

"A portion size for a small child is about a tablespoon of a particular food per year of age..."

In honor of National Nutrition Month, Dr. Noel Chávez, Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Co-Director of the Maternal and Child Health Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, talks about the importance of instilling healthy eating habits in children.

The Home Stretch

As we work putting the final touches on the videos produced by the VideoVoice project participants, we continue to reflect on what we have accomplished through this process. One of the main things we have learned is that community leaders are very aware of the health concerns in their communities. At the same time, local parents and residents seem worried about the environment in which their children are growing up. Whether it is a school in proximity to a Brownfields, or a power plant in the neighborhood, or the safety of a well water source, all of these are real concerns that have been brought up in our conversations in the community. There are many unanswered questions regarding the relationship between the built environment and children’s health. Data gathered through the National Children’s Study could provide insight and guidance for developing strategies to reduce the environmental risk of disease in the future. Our VideoVoice Project Coordinator talks about the lessons from conducting research in a very neighborhood-oriented city:

 However, the NCS goes beyond the physical environment, as it will also pay attention to social and cultural factors. As an observational study, the NCS is taking into account child-rearing practices, family background and composition, maternal and infant nutrition, among many other factors that may affect a child’s growth and development.  Additionally, NCS encourages community involvement in places where the NCS is taking place, here in Cook County and around the country. Maria, one our neighborhood ambassador, talks about this issue in the clip below:

“Well, I learned a lot about how my community feels, what their fears are, what their strengths are, how they view life, what their motivations are, what is it that precisely keeps us living in the same community. All of that in terms of my community. I also learned to listen a little bit more, to take my time to understand the thought process that people have when they are conversing with you. [I also learned] to understand their motivations, to see from an even more human point of view those motivations that make you live in such a beautiful community like ours. I also learned to feel more secure when talking to people. When doing the interviews, each one gave me more strength, more security, more confidence in finding out what we are thinking, what is going on with us and how can we project that. It was really beautiful.”

February is Children's Dental Health Month

In support of National Children's Dental Health Month, Dr. Daniel Johnson, Associate Professor Department of Pediatrics at the University of Chicago and co-principal investigator of the National Children’s Study Greater Chicago Study Center, discusses the importance of oral health since early childhood.

Informed Consent in the National Children’s Study

Check out this post from Cumberland County Study Center: Informed Consent in the National Children’s Study

Informed consent is the process by which researchers ensure that potential participants have adequate information to make a decision about whether to participate in a research study. An informed consent document is the educational tool providing this information. All individuals invited to participate in the National Children’s Study...

Que es el Acido Folico?

CPD Blog - Cache Valley National Children’s Study expands data collection - CPD

From our friends at Cache County Study Center:

CPD Blog - Cache Valley National Children's Study expands data collection - CPD

VideoVoice Project

If you have been paying attention, you may have noticed a few changes to our blog. Here are the details: 


1.  The Title of our Blog is now "National Children's Study Greater Chicago Study Center" as we are expanding our focus beyond our VideoVoice Project.  
 
2.  There are new tabs on the top of the Blog to help you navigate. Please review the information in our "About" and "Privacy" pages.
 
3.  Our VideoVoice Project has its own tab! You can find all VideoVoice posts in reverse chronological by clicking on this tab above. 

4.  We added our labels cloud to the left sidebar. Click on the labels to see posts related to that topic.


Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions in the comments box below!

January is Birth Defects Prevention Month

A helpful video from the March of Dimes discussing the importance of folic acid.

10 Things You Need to Know About Birth Defects