title: The National Children's Study: An Introduction and Historical Overview.
abstract: The National Children's Study (NCS) was an ambitious attempt to map children's health and development in a large representative group of children in the United States. In this introduction, we briefly review the background of the NCS and the history of the multiple strategies that were tested to recruit women and children. Subsequent articles then detail the protocols and outcomes of 4 of the recruitment strategies. It is hoped that lessons learned from these attempts to define a study protocol that could achieve the initial aims of the NCS will inform future efforts to conceptualize and execute strategies to provide generalizable insights on the longitudinal health of our nation's children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida; mark.hudak@jax.ufl.edu.
authors.forename: Mark L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Hudak
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Maryland;
authors.forename: Christina H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Division of Child Development, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi;
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Annett
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio, Texas;
authors.forename: Daniel E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Hale
authors.affiliation: Division of Environmental Health Services, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota;
authors.forename: Patricia M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: McGovern
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts, Worcester, Massachusetts;
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: McLaughlin
authors.affiliation: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dole
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado.
authors.forename: Jill L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Kaar
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Maryland;
authors.forename: Marion J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Balsam
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002669:Child Welfare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D054582:National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends*; D018579:Patient Selection; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology