Frequently Asked Questions for Families

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 affiliation and any questions you have about our program

No. Due to limited project resources, only English language materials are available.

We are currently enrolling families with a 3- to 5-year-old child attending a licensed child care center in our study area (We are currently working in the following counties: Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Johnston, Orange, Vance, Wake, or Warren Counties, North Carolina).

Your family should not be planning to move more than 50 miles outside of the study area in the next 12-18 months. An adult caregiver in your family must also be comfortable completing a phone interview and questionnaires in English.

To enroll, families must attend a child care center that has agreed to participate in our study.

Click here to check if you are eligible to enroll and connect with our study team!

• If your child care center has not already enrolled, please fill out our eligibility form to express your interest. A member of our study team will then contact you to confirm your eligibility and help your family and child care center enroll.

• If your center has already enrolled in our study, your center should have sent you a link or a paper copy of our consent form, which starts the enrollment process. If you need the link re-sent or if you need another paper copy, please check with your center, or contact a member of our study team.

Please note: for your family to be confirmed as participating members of our study, your child care center must also agree to participate. You can share our website with your center or send them this flyer so they can learn more about the program.

We would be happy to contact your child care center on your behalf to answer any questions or concerns they might have and encourage their participation.

If your child care center still chooses not to enroll in the study, then unfortunately we will not be able to enroll your family – our study design requires participation from both the family and their child care center.

If you are interested in enrolling but your center is not yet enrolled, please contact our study team so we can determine next steps.

This is a voluntary study and your family can withdraw from participating at any time. Please contact our study team as soon as possible if you wish to withdraw.

Please note, if you chose to withdraw from the study, we will use all available data that have been collected prior to withdrawal. For example, if you choose not to complete your household environmental sampling activities, we will still use the data we collected from your questionnaires. The only circumstances in which we would not use existing data is if we were explicitly requested not to do so by the child’s parent or legal guardian.

Thank you for your family’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.

You will collect all samples (dust, water, hair, saliva) samples yourself — our study team will not visit your home at any point during the study.

You will be trained to collect the samples using a mail-out test kit and simple instructions. We also have “how-to” videos you can watch and follow along!

Thank you for planning ahead!

1. Please read the sampling instructions included in your kit all the way through before you start.
2. Then, create a sampling schedule that works for your family—we provide a recommended sampling schedule in your instruction packet. The day you put the wristband on your child affects when you should collect the remaining samples in your kit.
3. Be sure to save your shipping box, the insulated liner, all of the Ziploc bags and sampling bottles, the freezer packs, and the pre-paid return label.
4. Put your ice packs in your freezer at least two days before your final sampling activities. This ensures they are frozen all the way through and can keep your samples cold during shipment back to the lab.

• The dust, water, and wristband help us understand the environmental contaminants in your home that your child could be exposed to.
• The hair and saliva samples help us understand the internal levels of certain chemicals already in your child. The hair will be analyzed for metals, including lead, and the saliva will be analyzed for a marker of cigarette smoke.
• The results from your child’s hair and saliva samples will only be seen by you and a few members of the RTI International study team. Your child's data will be de-identified by a member of our team. This means any personal information that could be used to identify you or your child will be removed.
• Data that could be linked back to you or your child is confidential, stored securely, and will never be shared with outside parties.
• De-identified data may be stored in a public repository and may be used for future research purposes.

We take your family’s data security and privacy very seriously. Please contact our team if you have any questions or concerns.

We understand parents might be uneasy about clipping some of their child’s hair. Luckily, we only need a small amount of hair to analyze the sample in the lab – about half the width of a pencil. Our sampling instructions are also designed to collect the hair sample from a spot that is not very noticeable and to collect it in a way that helps blend into your child’s hair. Please note that you will need to cut the hair close to the root.

If you have any remaining concerns about this part of the study, a member of our team would be more than happy to discuss this with you before you enroll.

We expect the sampling will take a total of 1 hour. Sampling activities happen over the course of 1 week and must happen in a specific order.

Please carefully read the instructions included in your sample kit before starting.

Please read your sampling instructions to determine the day you need to ship your samples back to our lab.

Schedule a pickup at www.UPS.com OR call UPS at 1-800-742-5877 after 7am.

If you schedule before 10am, UPS will come the same day. There's no charge for you to ship these samples back to the lab.

In addition to our written sampling instructions, we also have video tutorials you can watch to follow along.

If you need additional help, please contact our study team if you have questions at any point in the process and we will respond as soon as possible.

We will provide the results from your home environmental sampling and results from your child’s hair, saliva, and personal exposure monitoring wristband.

These samples are being tested for a variety of common chemical contaminants, such as metals (including lead), forever chemicals (known as PFAS), a marker of secondhand smoke, and flame retardants.

It may take several months for us to analyze your samples and share your results.

We expect to share environmental sampling results for your home, child, and child care center before we make our second visit to your preschool; however, if we detect any exceedances above health standards or guidelines, we will reach out to inform your family as soon as possible.

We will send your results via email—please contact our study team if you would prefer a copy mailed to your home. We thank you for your patience!

If we detect any exceedances above health standards or guidelines, we will reach out to inform your family as soon as we have results. Our team of environmental health scientists will also provide recommendations to reduce your child and family’s exposure to the contaminants we tested for.

Your home environmental sampling results are confidential. They are only accessible to you and certain members of our research team at RTI International. We will de-identify your results, meaning that no one outside of our research team will be able to link your results to your address or contact information. These results are also yours to keep—if you wish, you can share your results with others, but only if you would like.

Your child’s biospecimen results (hair and saliva) and wristband results are confidential. They are only accessible to you and certain members of our research team at RTI International. We will de-identify your child’s results, meaning that no one outside of our research team will be able to identify your child’s results. These results are also yours to keep—if you wish, you can share your results with others, but only if you would like.

The results of your child’s cognitive assessments are confidential. They are only accessible to certain members of our research team at RTI International. We will de-identify your child’s results, meaning that no one outside of our research team will be able to identify your child’s results.

Please note we are not sharing the results of cognitive assessments with parents/guardians. This is a standard practice for research studies involving cognitive outcomes. If you have concerns or questions about potential cognitive or behavioral issues, please speak to your child’s pediatrician.

Our study team is happy to help answer questions or concerns about your results. Please contact us!