The National Children’s Study is a prospective observational study that examines the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000+ children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21. Videovoice is a health advocacy and promotion methodology wherein participants learn videography techniques to research issues of concern, communicate their knowledge, and advocate for change. This study describes a videovoice project implemented in Cook County, IL as a vehicle for training lay community members in participatory videographic methods in order to engage communities selected by the National Children’s Study (NCS) for participant recruitment. READ MORE...

After finding such tremendous variability in asthma prevelance by neighborhood in our 2008 study, I decided to go into one community with a particularly high asthma burden, Humboldt Park, to learn more about why this might be. Humboldt Park is a diverse community area with a large number of Puerto Rican, African American, and Mexican American families. In May 2009, following the principles of community-based participatory research, we administered a cross-sectional asthma screening survey to adult caregivers of children attending two Humboldt Park elementary schools. Data were analyzed to determine the prevalence of diagnosed and probable asthma as well as the degree of asthma control among affected children; associations between asthma outcomes and mutable triggers were evaluated. Physician-diagnosed asthma was reported for 24.9% of children and probable asthma identified in an additional 16.2% of children READ MORE...