The National Children's Study. Abstracts of the National Children's Study research day 2011

The following are selected abstracts from the National Children’s Study (NCS) Research Day at NIH held August 24, 2011on the Bethesda campus of the National Institutes of Health. The goal of the NCS is to improve the health and well-being of children. The study will examine the role of genomics and the environment broadly defined (biological, chemical, physical, and psycho-social cultural), and their impacts on the health and development of children, following 100,000 participants from before birth until age 21 years. It is the largest longitudinal observational study of children ever undertaken in the United States. The purpose of NCS Research Day was to engage the NIH community and the public, display the Study’s preliminary data, and stimulate collaboration. Much of the research presented was initiated to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of either new ‘‘instruments’’ needed to standardize data collection or real time analysis of selected variables. Subject domains and titles of all the NCS Research Day Posters were distributed and broadcasts of the Plenary Sessions were available via NIH Videocast. The abstracts were selected based on their innovativeness and relevance to the fields of medical genetics and clinical teratology.