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.”

Que es el Acido Folico?

Suggestion Box

As President Obama said on his Thanksgiving address last week, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday “eating great food, watching a little football, and reflecting on how truly lucky we are.”

Here at the National Children’s Study, we are thankful for the opportunity to contribute to such a significant undertaking as improving the health of all children. We would be unable to do that if we did not have the support of our amazing community partners, who week by week over the past twelve months continue displaying our posters and brochures at their locations, inviting us to community events, and referring people to call our number if they are interested in participating.

As our VideoVoice project is coming to an end, we asked our neighborhood ambassadors for their thoughts and suggestions as the National Children’s Study moves forward in Cook County. Here is what Maria had to say:

“Some of the things that I can recommend are basically the same things that people recommended me or the same concerns they had about it. Among them is the expansion of the selected communities, perhaps to include more communities in order to admit a larger number of children.

Perhaps, contemplate the possibility of having women who become pregnant prior to eighteen years of age because that is a reality in our community. There are many pregnant women under eighteen, [whom] regrettably could be left out of this program having the opportunity to study the effects precisely which that premature pregnancy could have on the baby throughout his life.

Another would be to emphasize more our program through television, radio, mass media, utilize the media so that people know about us even more. Those are the main things that I would suggest the Study.

Of course, to continue working, to persist bringing information to the families. Perhaps one more thing that could work quite well is to bring specific information about topics of interest to our community. For example, health topics, mental health topics… In our Latino community, one of the main concerns is how the environment affects the emotional health of its inhabitants.”

Progress in the Field

As we continue our work in the community, attending events throughout Cook County, making presentations, talking to mothers and fathers interested in participating in the Study, we have been learning a great deal about what people’s concerns are in terms of the health of their community and what they want for their children.

Some parents have told us they are worried about living in proximity to a power plant and how that might affect their children’s health. One dad wanted to know if his son might have to stay behind in school like he did when he grew up. A community leader is concerned about lead poisoning as his community is mostly made up of older homes. An elected official talked about households using well water and not knowing how often they check the water quality. Others have mentioned the lack of resources in their community including access to parks and safe places for children to play.

Our VideoVoice project is a chance for people to go “on the record” expressing those concerns and giving feedback to the Study. Our neighborhood ambassadors have been asking local parents, community leaders, healthcare providers and others to participate in interviews, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Over the next several weeks, we will be producing a number of community videos which reflect the attitudes of people in our community about the National Children's Study. We will be sharing those videos through here and other means. In the meantime, two of our neighborhood ambassadors share their experiences working to promote the Study in the Latino community:

What have you learned from your first interviews?

"Working with people, doing the interviews has been very good because I have come to find out, in the first case, that the same experiences people have had are the same most of us have had. We are not really as different as we may seem, and our concerns remain mostly the same. We all want the well-being of our children; we want the well-being of our community and ourselves."

How do you think people in your community will respond to the NCS?

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