NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Benton County residents will soon learn their role in the National Children’s Study.
Three public involvement meetings are scheduled over the next two weeks to explain what the study is and who will be included.
“It has always been the intent of the investigators and those planning the study to involve the community,” said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, the study’s principal investigator.
She said the meetings are not required, but are strongly encouraged by the study’s funding agency, the National Institutes of Health.
The National Children’s Study is the largest long-term study of environmental and genetic infl uences on children’s health attempted in the United States. Benton County is the only Arkansas location, and is one of 105 sites nationwide.
The study will follow participants from conception to age 21 with 105,000 infants to be enrolled nationally. The local goal is torecruit 1,000 Benton County women in four years.
Dr. James Robbins, the study’s lead local investigator, said organizers are anxious the study is not further along, but added there are a lot of hoops to jump through.
“We’re taking all the necessary, deliberate steps to get it right,” he said.
Robbins said in March he wanted to enroll the fi rst 100 women in July. The new goal is to start that process by the end of this year.
The initial steps required in the study are taking shape.
Pearl McElfish, the study’s Benton County administrator, said staff members recently moved into an oft ce on the fourth floor of the J.B. Hunt Tower, next to Embassy Suites in Rogers.
Local staftng is also growing, with six employees hired and another eight and a half positions being filled soon. The employees include research personnel, registered nurses and information technology specialists, she said.
Hobbs said Benton County’s inclusion in the study was by chance. There are slightly more than 3,000 counties in the United States and areas were divided by number of births, she said.
“Then it was a random selection,” Hobbs said.
About 3,000 babies are born in the county annually, Robbins said. All county births between 2001 and 2007were considered when selecting inclusion areas.
Robbins said he enlisted the help of Elizabeth Bowen, Benton County GIS coordinator.
“She is incredibly talented. She mapped every birth for those six years,” he said.
The mapping helped isolate 14 areas in the county that had equal birth numbers. Each area was then divided into nine segments.
“Basically it’s only oneninth of the county that we are choosing women from,” Robbins said. The areas are spread throughout the county from Siloam Springs to the Beaver Lake area.
The Benton County study is using a provider-based recruitment strategy. Obstetricians and family practice doctors will be the main connection in fi nding participants.
About 75 percent of the women enrolled will already be pregnant with the remaining 24 percent in the pregnancy planning stages.
Robbins said he is confident the recruiting approach will work better than a doorto-door system tried other places.
News, Pages 1 on 10/25/2010