1. Home>
  2. Public Relations>
  3. What's New>
  4. What's New 2016>
  5. JECS Programme Office starts sending a report on each individual child diet history questionnaire result today!
このページを日本語で読む
2016-8-1

JECS Programme Office starts sending a report on each individual child diet history questionnaire result today!

1 August, 2016
Deputy Director: Yasushi Tadami
Section Head: Shoji F. Nakayama
Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS) Programme Office
Centre for Health and Environmental Risk Research
National Institute for Environmental Studies

National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) has been conducting a longitudinal birth cohort study, namely Japan Environment and Children’s Study (JECS), involving 100,000 mother–child pairs since 2011. Today, JECS Programme Office starts sending a report on each individual child diet history questionnaire result. The report will be sent to his or her own parents or guardians after the questionnaire is completed.
This is to inform the parents or guardians about their child’s diet and nutrition intake. It is expected to contribute to keep their continuous participation in the study until the children become 13 years of age.
It is the first study in Japan to perform such a diet history questionnaire survey targeting 100,000 preschool children. The questionnaire administration started in January 2016 and will last until March 2020 at the latest. After all the participants complete the questionnaires, the data will be analysed with other exposure data to investigate environmental impacts on children’s health and development.

Further information:

Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan launched the Japan Environment and Children’s Study (JECS) in January 2011. JECS is a large-scale longitudinal birth cohort study involving 100,000 mother–child pairs. National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) leads JECS as the Programme Office in co-operation with the National Centre for Child Health and Development (serving as the Medical Support Centre) and 15 Regional Centres consisting of universities and medical institutes throughout Japan. In March 2014, JECS completed its participant recruitment registering over 100,000 pregnant mothers.

JECS is a longitudinal epidemiological study aiming to investigate the effect of environmental factors, including chemical substances, on children’s health and development. JECS defines the environment broadly to include chemical, physical and biological factors, life-styles and socio-economic features. Diet is considered one of the important components of the environmental factors that affects children’s growth. JECS collect diet intake data during pregnancy, preschool and school-age periods.

The preschool diet history questionnaire (DHQ) at 4.5 years of age has been administered since January 2016. The parents or guardians are asked to complete the questionnaire. The brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire (BDHQ3y) developed originally by Professor Satoshi Sasaki at Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo was modified for JECS under his supervision.

Considering their interests in children’s diet and nutrition intake, JECS Programme Office for the first time reports the individual questionnaire data to the participants. The report shows the intake of important nutrients (calcium, iron, vitamin C, salt and fat) with red, yellow and green signals that enable the participants easily understand their children’s nutritional intake status. It also shows the balance of the three major nutrients (protein, fat and carbohydrate) intake to help the parents/guardians to obtain useful information for their child-rearing.

It is expected that the result of the preschool diet history data will become one of the base data as important covariates when evaluating environmental impacts on children’s health. Data will be analysed and the results will be published after all the participants complete the questionnaires in 2020.

Contact information:

Shoji F. Nakayama
Centre for Health and Environmental Risk Research
JECS Programme Office (Phone: 029-850-2086)
National Institute for Environmental Studies

Public Relations