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.

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 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.

Learn and Learn (and Learn)

Over the past couple of months, we have been surprised, sympathetic, and most of all humbled by many of the conversations we have had with people who care so much about their community, their children and their shared future. It has been a great experience being able to record these interviews, and we are working very hard to produce a final set of videos that will hopefully do justice to all the individuals who participated and the communities whom they represent.

While we feel we accomplished one of our goals of learning more about different communities across Cook County, we were also striving to make this project a learning experience for local community residents whom were working with us as neighborhood ambassadors. Early on, we decided one of the main things we were going to work on was interviewing techniques. In the intervening weeks, we also practice some technical skills in handling video and audio equipment. In addition, we became subjects of the interviews ourselves as you have witnessed in this very forum. In this week’s post, Ellie and Rose describe below what they have learned through the VideoVoice process:

But the “learning” does not stop there. In a VideoVoice project, there are actually three areas in which knowledge is gained. As we mentioned before, VideoVoice first affords you the opportunity to learn more about the community. This is particularly helpful for researchers who might be somewhat unfamiliar with the history, background and cultural values of the selected community. Second, VideoVoice provides participants with interviewing skills and an understanding of video production. Finally, VideoVoice aims to share what we learned with the public in general through a final video product. The goal being that the community gains a deeper understanding of our message in their own words. We are anxious to see the end result in the upcoming year.

Happy New Year and look for our next update in 2012!

With a Smile on Our Face

Fresh from one of our last interviews in the community, coincidentally on the first day with fresh snow on the ground, we keep reflecting on what we have learned over the past couple of months as we conducted our VideoVoice project in Cook County. We have interviewed some people who have been really open in telling us how they feel about the National Children’s Study and its goals. Over and over again we have heard from parents, school teachers, community leaders, healthcare professionals and others that the NCS presents a unique opportunity to improve the health of our children. While most people seem to understand the importance of the Study, they are also keenly aware of some of the perceived barriers to participation, whether the length of the Study, the number of interviews per year, language issues, and privacy concerns, among others. However, people we interviewed have been extremely thoughtful not only pointing out some of these issues but also providing their own recommendations on how to overcome them.

If you look back at our first post, we explained that a VideoVoice project like ours seeks participation from community members, strengthens and builds upon those relationships, and mobilizes people to action. It is fair to say that we have been overwhelmed by the level of participation of our community partners and community residents, and as we compile all the interviews for our final video, you will see that people really let their voices be heard. Our call to action will come soon when we release our final product and ask you to help us distribute it widely.

In this week’s clip, one of our neighborhood ambassadors reflects upon interview styles. When conducting VideoVoice interviews, our aim has always been to create a relaxed environment where the interviewee feels comfortable and even forgets that there is a camera and a microphone pointed at him or her. We have accomplished this by interviewing people in their own setting, whether their own home, office, or out in their community. We also practiced how to ask questions in a calm voice and friendly manner. In addition, we assure interviewees that they do not need to prepare prior to the interview. If someone asked to see the questions we will be asking, we have sent a list of the types of questions we ask; while keeping in mind that our intention is to have a frank and honest conversation with them. Have you ever interviewed someone who never smiles? Neither have we.