Northwestern has received a $24 million grant to standardize tools used in evaluating childhood health across the U.S., the University announced Friday. The grant is part of the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Program, supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Primary investigators behind the project include Feinberg Profs. David Cella — director of the Center for Patient-Centered Outcomes — and Richard Gershon, chief of outcome and measurement Science in the department of medical social sciences.

ECHO includes investigators at over 180 academic and medical institutions who seek to understand the effect of environmental influences on child health and development. They study five areas of pediatric health which are known to play a large role in later health: pregnancy and birth, upper and lower airway health, obesity, neurodevelopment and positive health.

“Our goal in participating in (ECHO) is to ensure the way that the exposures are measured is state of the art,” Cella said in a Friday news release. “We can’t ask questions without measuring what it is we’re trying to associate with child health. Measurement science is a supporting component of this research, and ECHO wouldn’t be successful without it.”

Together, Cella and Gershon will focus on telehealth as a medium for measuring childhood health, according to the release. The pair will measure depression and mental health in youth with questionnaires and surveys.

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Twitter: @lmschroeder_

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