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.

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.

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.

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.