Design and recruitment of the Chicago Healthy Living Study: a study of health behaviors in a diverse cohort of adult childhood cancer survivors.
BACKGROUND
Adult childhood cancer survivors are at higher risk for developing late medical effects related to their cancer treatments. Health-promoting behaviors may reduce the risk of some late effects and the severity of others. This article describes the design and recruitment of the Chicago Healthy Living Study (CHLS), an on-going study designed to examine the health behaviors and body mass index of minority adult childhood cancer survivors compared with nonminority survivors and noncancer controls.


METHODS
Survivors are identified by the hospital cancer registries at 5 treating institutions in the Chicago area; then, a multilevel recruitment plan will be implemented with the objective of enrolling 450 adult survivors of childhood cancer (150 in each racial/ethnic group). Simultaneously, 375 adult African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white noncancer controls (125 in each racial/ethnic group) living in the Chicago area will be recruited by using listed, targeted digit dialing. All participants will complete a 2-hour interview of questionnaires related to diet, physical activity, smoking, and associated mediators. Height and weight also will be measured.


CONCLUSIONS
The CHLS will provide important information on the health behaviors of adult minority childhood cancer survivors that can be used to inform the development of interventions to improve modifiable risks.
Stolley
Melinda R
MR
Department of Medicine, Section of Health Promotion Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60608, USA. mstolley@uic.edu
Sharp
Lisa K
LK
Arroyo
Claudia
C
Ruffin
Cherese
C
Restrepo
Jacqueline
J
Campbell
Richard
R
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D002641:Chicago; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002985:Clinical Protocols; D035061:Control Groups; D015438:Health Behavior; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D054525:Minority Health; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D018579:Patient Selection; D012107:Research Design; D012985:Software Design; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D044465:White People