DASH

New Publication Highlights ECHO Program’s Contribution to Studying COVID-19 Pandemic’s Effect on Child Health and Well-being

Posted on by Jodi Snare

Frontiers in Pediatrics recently published an article, titled “Opportunities for Understanding the COVID-19 Pandemic and Child Health in the United States: The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program,” describing the ECHO Program’s unique opportunity to contribute to knowledge about the pandemic’s effects on child health outcomes. The article also provides an overview of ECHO data related to COVID-19, which is now publicly accessible through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s (NICHD) Data and Specimen Hub (DASH).

Data that ECHO collected during the pandemic can help researchers understand how pandemic-related social and economic disruptions and COVID-19 infection may have affected the health and well-being of children in the United States.

Established in 2016 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the ECHO Program focuses on solution-oriented research in five key areas of health—preconception, pregnancy, and birth; breathing; body weight; brain development; and well-being—to identify factors affecting child health outcomes and methods for improving those outcomes. By 2019, ECHO research sites had pooled existing data and collected additional data from enrolled children and caregivers.

In April 2020, the program used that unified infrastructure to quickly roll out a novel ECHO COVID-19 questionnaire to capture family experiences during the pandemic. The questionnaire included three versions: caregiver self-report, adolescent self-report, and caregiver report for children 12 years and younger. This original questionnaire aimed to assess COVID-19 infection rates, access to health services, changes in employment, and changes in mental and physical health among children and parents.

As the pandemic evolved, ECHO modified the survey to capture the effects of vaccines and remote schooling. From April 1, 2020, to August 31, 2021, 60 ECHO research sites examined COVID-19-related environmental conditions and health outcomes among 13,725 children and their caregivers. The children ranged in age from early childhood through adolescence and up to age 21.

While continuing to collect data in person, as allowed, the ECHO Program shifted partially to remote data collection methods, including remote collection of biospecimens, online surveys, phone-based questionnaires, and telehealth assessments. The program also expanded to include time-sensitive evaluations of COVID-19 infection rates and pandemic-related mental and social impacts.

ECHO data collected during the pandemic can be used to conduct solution-oriented research to inform the development of programs and policies to support child health during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, the ECHO Program has already used this data to publish studies describing families’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects the pandemic has had on children’s screen time, sleep habits, behavior, and well-being; infant development; and mothers’ mental health.

This data is now publicly available through the DASH website. ECHO data on DASH includes information collected on a diverse group of more than 41,299 participants across the U.S. and can serve as a resource for the scientific community.

First Public-use Version of ECHO-wide Cohort Data Now Available

Posted on by Jodi Snare

The ECHO Program is excited to announce that de-identified new and extant ECHO data is now available through the Data and Specimen Hub (DASH). DASH is a centralized resource established by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) that allows researchers to share and access de-identified data from studies via a controlled-access mechanism.

The ECHO-wide Cohort combines 69 cohorts across the U.S. and allows researchers to access information from a large and diverse population of children followed from the prenatal period through adolescence. This first public-use version of ECHO-wide Cohort data covers information collected on 41,299 participants and provides a valuable resource for the scientific community. This momentous step fulfills both a key strategic goal of the ECHO Program and an obligation to U.S. taxpayers for their investment in our research.

Researchers can now request access to these data by creating a DASH account and submitting a Data Request Form. The NICHD DASH Data Access Committee will review the request and provide a response in approximately two to three weeks. Once granted access, researchers will be able to use the data for three years. See the DASH Tutorial for more detailed information on the process.