It is free for both child care centers and families to participate in the Preschool Environmental Experiences and Development Study.
In fact, there are several benefits to participating in the program, including gift cards and free environmental sampling.
Thank you for your interest in our study.
You can visit our contact page to be put in touch with a member of our study team. Please be sure to include your name, contact information, and any questions or comments you have about our program
No. Due to limited project resources, only English language materials are available.
We are currently enrolling licensed child care centers in our study area. We are currently working in the following North Carolina counties: Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Johnston, Orange, Vance, Wake, or Warren Counties, North Carolina. Your center must serve 3- to 5-year-old children.
To participate, your center must allow our team access to the kitchen/food prep area and toddler classrooms with participating children so we can collect dust and water samples. Your center must also have a quiet area for us to conduct assessments with participating children—this could be a quiet hallway, a teacher workspace, or an unused office.
Click here to start signing up!
To start the enrollment process, please fill out our eligibility form. A member of our study team will then call you to confirm your eligibility, explain the study activities and participation requirements, and help your child care center enroll.
- After enrolling with a member of our study team, we will ask you a few questions about your center over the phone. We will then provide you with materials about our study that you share with families in toddler classrooms.
- After we have recruited several families at your center, a member of our team will contact you to coordinate a visit to your center. Depending on the final number of participating children, this first visit could last one day or multiple days. This visit will involve a member of our team conducting dust and water sampling in classrooms with participating children, and water sampling in your kitchen/food preparation area. They will also conduct cognitive assessments that take 30 minutes for each participating child. The assessments take place on a portable computer we bring to your center.
- Your center will receive $100 for your participation and we will also share your center's environmental sampling results and our team's recommendations for how to take action to reduce children’s exposures.
We are glad you have already taken steps to support children’s health! Many children spend large portions of their childhood at child care facilities. That is why it is so important to make sure these spaces are as safe as possible for growing children.
As of 2019, all licensed child care centers in North Carolina were required to test for lead in their drinking water and food preparation water. You might have already completed water lead testing under this requirement. PEDS is a voluntary study that investigates many common contaminants (in addition to lead) in both water and dust at child care centers.
- You cannot see, smell, or taste most common chemical contaminants. Even centers that meet all sanitation requirements and have low lead levels are still at risk for many common contaminants.
- The expanded testing provided by the PEDS project will give you a better understanding of environmental conditions at your center and steps you can take to reduce children’s potential exposures to common contaminants at your center.
- Detecting contamination and understanding the potential sources of contamination in our daily environments is a great first step towards supporting children’s health and early development.
Thank you for your center’s interest in our study!
You can visit our contact page to send us a message, or you can leave us a voicemail/text message at 855-997-0089. A member of our study team will contact you as soon as possible.
Dust and water samples will be collected from each toddler classroom with a participating child. These samples will be analyzed for a variety of metals, including lead, arsenic, cadmium, and chromium.
Water samples will also be collected from your kitchen/food preparation area and will be analyzed for metals and forever chemicals (PFAS).
A research assistant on our study team will conduct assessments with all participating children and collect all environmental samples during their visit to your center.
The research assistant visiting your center is trained and has extensive experience working with children. All of our research assistants have received child care criminal background checks, are vaccinated for COVID-19, and will comply with all of your center's health and safety requirements.
You can learn more about our research assistants here.
We understand that attendance and student health can be hard to predict. Our study team may follow up with your center to schedule an additional day to come do the cognitive assessments for any absent children.
We will only directly share your center’s environmental sampling results with the center director. We also encourage center directors to share their center’s results with staff members and families—this helps build trust among everyone who spends significant time at the center.
We will not post your center’s results publicly. Your center’s results will be de-identified and then combined with other centers’ de-identified data so we can produce summary statistics for our study area. These summary statistics will be publicly available.
It may take several months for us to analyze your samples and share results for your child care center; however, if we detect any exceedances above health standards or guidelines, we will reach out to inform your center as soon as possible.
We will send results to the center director via email—please contact our study team if you would prefer a copy mailed to your center. We thank you for your patience!
If elevated levels of chemicals are detected at your center, your center will not face any disciplinary actions, citations, or penalties.
PEDS is a voluntary research study and results from this study are not reported under licensing requirements or sanitation rules. When we provide your center’s sampling results, we include recommendations for how to take action to reduce children’s exposures to the chemicals detected at your center. These recommendations are optional, but encouraged!
As of 2019, all licensed child care centers in North Carolina were required to test for lead in their drinking water and food preparation water (see the NC DHHS website for more information). You have likely already completed water lead testing under this requirement. If elevated lead is detected in your center’s water during the PEDS study, we will connect you to resources to help you reduce these levels. There are new sources of state funding to help child care centers pay for water filters and other lead mitigation activities! More information on this will be available soon.
If you still have questions, please feel free to reach out to our study team.
Our study team is happy to help answer questions or concerns about your results. Please contact us!