Frequently Asked Questions About the Generation Health Study

The main goal of this study is to learn how the characteristics of the neighborhood(s) where Mom grew up might influence Baby’s health – even as an adult. In other words, can we predict Baby’s adult health by learning about Mom’s experiences and exposures where she lived throughout her life? We are interested in having Mom’s blood sample as well, to see if there is a connection between her health and where she has lived.

If you gave birth at a Henry Ford Hospital between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2023, you may be eligible.
Henry Ford Health hospitals are:

• Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit
• Henry Ford Jackson Hospital
• Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township
• Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital
• Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital

To find out if you can take part, complete this screening questionnaire. [link to screening questionnaire via REDCap – need URL] Then, we will contact you with the next steps.

At this time, only mothers who gave birth at the five hospitals listed above are eligible. If this changes, we will update our website with additional locations.

First, you will give us permission to request your baby’s blood spots from the State of Michigan records. You’ll provide your consent by signing a consent form. These blood spots are collected by medical staff when babies are born, then stored at the Michigan BioTrust for Health program. No additional blood samples will be taken from your baby for this study. In fact, we do not even need you or your child to come to a clinic or meet with the research team.

You will also fill out a questionnaire that asks about where you (Mom) have lived since you were born and about your childhood experiences. It takes 20 to 60 minutes to complete the questionnaire, depending on how many places you have lived. You can complete all the questions online and submit the form using our secure email through Henry Ford Health. You can also fill out the questionnaire over the phone with our study coordinator.

If Mom would like to give us a blood sample for additional payment and to enhance our study results, we will send a kit to your home. You’ll prick your finger and mail the kit back to us at no cost to you. We will include instructions on how to mail the kit back to us.

We appreciate your time and input into our study. To thank you, you will receive up to $100. We will pay you $75 when the consent form is signed. An additional $25 is paid to mothers who provide their blood sample using the home finger prick kit.

You will be paid with a ClinCard. It is like a debit card and can be used most anywhere. You can use it to pay for groceries, gas, clothes, or maybe something fun or special for you or your baby. Instructions on how to activate the ClinCard will be provided to you with the card. The ClinCard is used by most Henry Ford Health research studies, and our participants find it easy and convenient.

We will gather information about where you live now and where you lived in the past. Then, using the information you provided, our study team will explore public information about those areas. We will look at air and soil pollution, walkability, access to healthy foods, green spaces, early childhood education centers, the high school graduation rate and more. These things will tell us whether the area supports good health or makes maintaining a healthy lifestyle more challenging.

Eligible participants can begin the questionnaire as soon as they complete the consent form. The questionnaire takes 20 to 60 minutes to complete, depending on how often you have moved and changed residences in your lifetime. You may choose to send us your blood sample in addition to signing the consent form and completing the questionnaire.

No! There are no clinic or hospital visits. You will give us permission to access your baby’s blood sample being stored at the Michigan BioTrust for Health program by signing a consent form. If Mom would like to give us a blood sample for additional payment and to enhance our study results, we will send a kit to your home. You’ll prick your finger and mail the kit back to us at no cost to you. This is all you need to do to participate in this study!

Yes! Please call Study Coordinator Araba Gyan, MPH, at (313) 876-9865. She or another member of the research team will help you complete the forms over the telephone.

You might remember that medical staff pricked your baby’s heel in the hospital after they were born. The blood from the heel was blotted onto special paper. We call them “blood spots,” because the blood makes spots on the paper. This record is stored by the Michigan BioTrust for Health program for all babies born in the state of Michigan.

We use sophisticated techniques called metabolomics (pronounced: met-tab-oh-low-micks) to look for certain signals in the baby’s blood spot. These signals may indicate a higher or lower probability of the baby developing chronic disease in adulthood. We use the same process with Mom’s blood sample.

Yes! We use only a small part of the sample. The rest will continue to be stored with the Michigan BioTrust for Health program.

That’s one of the parts of this study that is so fascinating. We believe there might be a connection, and this study will help us learn if that is true. If it is, future research will be needed to find out more.

No, you will not be able to see the individual results of your blood or your baby’s blood evaluation. This is because this study is not designed to provide results to individual participants. However, we will send you a description of our overall findings and you may be able to read about the results in publications. What we learn may help others in the future.

Yes, we will keep all study materials confidential. The researchers will label research records with a unique code. Information with your name and data or specimens will be stored in a locked and secured location.

A finger prick of blood from Mom will allow us to compare signals in Mom’s blood to the same signals in her baby’s blood spot.

We securely and confidentially received a list of mothers that have given birth at a Henry Ford Health hospital between Jan. 1, 2016, through Dec. 31, 2023. Our research team then contacts the mothers to find out if they would like to participate in the study.

Please call Araba Gyan, MPH, at (313) 876-9865 or email us at healthofinfants@hfhs.org.