| How Are The Children? |
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By Jack Kresnak “How are the children?” is the proverbial African greeting. But, in places like Detroit, Wayne County and other parts of Michigan, it’s not a question that anyone can answer with any real specificity. That’s especially true when it comes to this variation of the question: “How healthy are the children?” The questions begin when a woman becomes pregnant: Does she have high blood pressure, a history of diabetes, a life full of stress? Does she have access to a doctor? Does she live in a neighborhood with high levels of air pollution? Does she eat healthy food? Does she drink alcohol or take illegal drugs? Does she have a safe home or a high school diploma? They continue after the child is born: Was the baby premature? Do the parents understand the importance of getting immunizations for their child, of reading to their infants and toddlers, of the value of a full night’s sleep and frequent naps for their young children? Does the child live in a home environment that puts him or her at risk of asthma? While the questions are out there, there are very few answers for most children, especially kids who are not yet in school and who live in communities of poverty. Now, a nationwide effort to find answers to these questions and many others has begun a longitudinal study that will study children from pregnancy to age 21. On January 26, the Michigan study was launched in Wayne County with four other target counties ramping up in the coming months – Genesee, Grand Traverse, Lenawee and Macomb. “This has been on the drawing board for 10 years,” said Dr. Nigel Paneth of Michigan State University, a pediatrician and perinatal epidemiologist who is principal investigator for the Michigan Alliance for the National Children’s Study. “It’s a study that I think will completely change the face of child health in this country.” In 2007, the MANCS received an $18.5 million, five-year National Institutes of Health contract to conduct the study in Wayne County and in 2008 an additional $57 million to conduct the study in Genesee, Grand Traverse, Lenawee and Macomb counties. Organizers spent the past few years designing the study and are now set to launch the project in Michigan and will hire between 200 and 300 people, contributing important jobs to the economies in those counties. The study comes as Michigan faces the latest in a long series of budget deficits that have hurt public health systems and hindered efforts to enroll an estimated 160,000 uninsured Michigan children into either Medicaid or the MiChild health insurance programs. Former Michigan Surgeon General Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom, vice president of community health education and wellness for the Henry Ford Health System, told a group gathered at the Detroit Athletic Club to launch the study in Michigan that it is important to study the “links between a child’s environment and their health.” “There is so much more to health that we still don’t know,” Wisdom said, “and so much more than we still need to do.” This generation of children, Wisdom said, could be “the first generation of children who for the first time may not out-live their parents.” According to the latest Kids Count report released on February 8 by the Michigan League for Human Services in collaboration with Michigan’s Children, more than one-third of our state’s toddlers do not receive their full immunizations, and 21.3 of every 10,000 children suffer from asthma. And nearly 7 percent of our children have no health insurance even though most of those kids probably are eligible for either Medicaid of the MiChild insurance programs. Paneth said the study will focus on the root causes of conditions or illnesses in children such as premature birth, asthma and autism, and would not just be about gathering data. “We’re not going to stop with knowledge; we’re going to try to get that knowledge implemented in policy and action.” The study will seek to identify 100,000 ethnically diverse families from 105 communities across the United States, and select women aged 18-49 who are either pregnant or about to become pregnant who live in those communities. The children of those mothers will not only be studied until age 21, but assisted through enrollment in health programs. For more information about the MANCS, call 877-406-2627 or visit www.mancs.us or www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov
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  written by Deb Weatherston , February 10, 2011 It is heartening to know that you are again writing about children, sounding the alarm, gathering advocates to think about the state of health of Michigan's children. To this, I would only add, "What about the babies?" Often invisible, the babies need your voice to speak for them. They need parents who can offer nurturing relationships in which they can grow - feed them, talk to them, hold them, comfort them, find appropriate child care in addition to the very important health care needs you identify. Thank you for your leadership and words. report abuse
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 written by Jack Kresnak , February 10, 2011 Babies absolutely need their mothers and fathers which is why Michigan's Children, in partnership with MI-AIHM and others, continues to push for access to good prenatal care, a medical home for all children and parenting support that allows them to give their children the best start in life possible. The work of MI-AIMH is critical, and we look forward to working together to improve public policy decision-making in 2011. Thanks for commenting. report abuse
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