Would you like to know how your environment may be impacting the health of you and your children? If you live in Mississippi, researchers at Brown University School of Public Health will be conducting a research study to better understand how your water, soil, air, and noise quality may be impacting the health of you and your children.
Can you provide more details about this study visit?
Step 1: To agree to participate, you will first need to read our consent form and provide your consent.
Step 2: Read the parental permission form and provide your permission to have you and/or your child enrolled in this study.
Step 3: Take a 90-question survey to gather information about you, your household, your neighborhood, your water quality, and your child. This survey will take 30 minutes to complete.
Step 4: For you and your child, you will permit us to:
- Measure your height and weight using a stadiometer and scale. Measure your blood pressure using a standard blood pressure cuff. We will repeat this step 3 times.
- Measure your hearing using a portable audiometry kiosk. You and/ or your child will also fill out a brief hearing screening survey.
- Measure your lung function to better understand your asthma risk using a portable spirometer. You and/or your child will also fill out a brief spirometer survey.
- Provide a sample of your nails so we can measure cortisol levels, which is a marker for persistent stress. We will clip the nails from all five fingers of both hands. You will also fill out a brief survey to assess if you take steroids.
- Provide a sample of blood from your/their fingertip. You and/or your child will provide a sample using a collection kit, which contains a cartridge to collect blood from their fingertip, a fingertip pricker, and both alcohol pads and a bandage to clean and cover the prick mark. A sample of blood will allow us to understand the level of PFAS and heavy metals present in your you and/or your child’s bloodstream as well as gauge levels of stress and respiratory biomarkers also present.
- You and your child are free to participate in whatever aspects of the study you feel comfortable with. Your participation is voluntary and you are free to change your mind/quit at any time during the study visit. Any data collected from you will be destroyed.
You and your child will be eligible for $150 upon completion of your study visit.