October 15, 2024
The Gunnar Lab is part of a large national study called the Health’s Early Roots and Origins Study (HERO). The more we learn about how chronic activation of stress physiology impacts lifelong health, the more we are called to translate this into early interventions to better support families and children. It is important to note that not all children whose lives are objectively quite stressful are experiencing excessive activation of stress physiology. Equally important, there are many children who are highly stress reactive who are running their stress systems overtime, even though they are objectively living lives that do not seem excessively stressful.
This knowledge is the reason for the JPB Research Network on Toxic Stress. We are a group of scientists from 5 Universities, headed by Jack Shonkoff, Pediatrician of Harvard University and funded by the JPB Foundation. What we are attempting to do is to develop a panel of biomarkers that would tell a child’s health care provider that their body is experiencing chronic excessive stress activation. The health care provider would then bring in early childhood programs like Heathy Steps or other early interventions to work with the family to help reduce the problems producing that child’s stress.
The challenge is to figure out what biomarkers are feasible to collect during a regular well-child pediatric visit (that was HERO-I), and then to figure out how readily families would agree to the collection of saliva, hair, and cheek cells needed for those biomarkers (that was HERO-II). Now we have started HERO-III, where we need to norm and validate the full battery panel for children 4 months through 5 years. For that we need about 6,000 children and family participants across the nation. The Gunnar Lab in Minnesota will be collecting data from around 300-400 of those 6,000 children. Because we do not need them to be going in for their well-child visits, we can collect the bio samples in our lab space at the University of Minnesota, at preschool, community based events, or even the MN State Fair.
Participate in the HERO STUDY
We are inviting parents with young children ages 4 months to 5 years to participate in the HERO Study. Families will receive a $40 gift card and a University of MN string backpack in appreciation for their time and participation.
How to participate?
If you are interested in participating or want more information, email HEROSTUDYMN@UMN.EDU or call 612-440-5641. You can also click below to fill out an online interest survey and a research team member will contact you.