CHILD Study researchers awarded $6mil to study environment’s impact on chronic diseases
CHILD Study researchers across Canada have received a cumulative $6 million from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton serves as the National Coordinating Centre for the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study – a Canadian study that strives to discover how genes and environment can play a role in children’s development of asthma, allergies, and other chronic diseases.
Today's funding announcement will support three new projects launched in BC, Manitoba and Ontario that will look more closely at environmental factors and the development of asthma, lung diseases and obesity.
The study follows the development of infants from pregnancy to five years of age, using questionnaires, biological samples and clinical assessments to carefully measure the development of allergies, function of their lungs, and the environment that they live in.
By involving over 11 hospitals across Canada, researchers have recruited over 3,500 families – meaning that over 9,600 children, mothers and fathers are participating in the study. More than 40 researchers and staff are involved in CHILD.
“This funding is evidence of the strategic value of CHILD Study data as a platform for novel research, and will enable important discoveries about how our environment impacts the health of Canadians,” says Dr. Malcolm Sears, CHILD Study Director at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, and a professor of medicine at McMaster University.
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For more information about this announcement, read the press release here.
To learn more about the CHILD Study, watch this video developed by AllerGen NCE.