AllerGen NCE

CHILD Study: 3,500 Children Could Change Canada's Approach to Fighting Chronic Diseases

Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study examines how a child's environment during pregnancy, and in the first few years of life, can interact with genetics to affect the risk of developing allergies, asthma, type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases

If just 24 children can help scientists discover that Caesarean sections and formula feeding may deprive babies of the protective gut bacteria needed for lifelong health, just imagine what will be discovered by collecting a wide range of health information from some 3,500 children. Scientists believe it will influence everything from health policy and building codes to parenting decisions for decades to come.

Those 3,500 children, along with their mothers and about 2,600 fathers from Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and several communities in Manitoba, are on the front-lines of the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study, a national birth cohort study funded in part by the Allergy, Genes and Environment Network (AllerGen).

AllerGen researchers awarded CIHR grants

CHILD research team awarded five-year CIHR grant


Dr. Malcolm Sears, an AllerGen research leader and a professor of medicine at McMaster University, together with a team of CHILD researchers from across Canada, has received a five-year operating grant, valued at over $1 million, from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health. The CHILD Study application was ranked first among 65 proposals reviewed by the respiratory committee in the March 2014 competition.

Windsor Sandbox and International Children’s Games a Success!

The Sandbox Project travelled to Windsor Ontario last week to participate in the 2013 International Children’s Games

In an effort to raise awareness of the importance and power of collaboration in tackling child and youth health issues, The Sandbox Project is brought its signature event, “The World’s Largest Sandbox” to The International Children’s Games on August 16th! While The World’s Largest Sandbox  is held annually in Ottawa each June to raise the awareness of child and youth health issues with public officials, this event focused on our not-for-profit partners and families from the Windsor-Essex community. Joining The Sandbox Project in the Sandbox was AllerGen NCE, Play Safe and Parachute – three of our great partners!