CHILL is an exciting opportunity for your child to learn more about air pollution and how it affects our bodies, to become involved in live world class science and meet health scientists.
This independent research is funded by the NHS and investigates the impact of air pollution on children’s respiratory health and their brain development.
The study compares the health scores of over 3,300 children from years 2, 3 and 4 from 44 primary schools in central London and 41 primary schools in Luton/Dunstable each year over four years, making CHILL one of the largest studies in the world to address this important public health issue.
To do this we will visit your child’s school once a year for four years (four visits in total) to do a health check. This will be during the normal school day and will take about half an hour. At the end of the visit we will ask your child to wear an activity monitor on their hip for seven days (we will return to school to collect it). We will also ask you to fill out some questionnaires about your child’s health (this should take about 10-15 minutes).
We hope that the experience has been enjoyable and informative for both you and your child so far. We hope that you will continue to support this important research initiative so that together we can benefit the health of current and future generations. If there is anything that is not clear, or if you would like more information, please contact a member of the study team.
Find out more
Current information about air pollution and its impact:
Parents/Guardians will be asked to fill out a questionnaire and return this to school, along with the consent form prior to the visit from the research team.
For those who consent, we will come to the school once a year for four years and carry out a health check where the child will be taken out of class for about half an hour and will go through some simple activities.
- Measure the child’s height and weight.
- Measure the size of their lungs and how well they are working.
- Ask some questions about how they travel to school.
- Fit an activity monitor that they will wear for 7 days (we will return to school to collect it). Some children will be invited to also wear a GPS monitor to look at their routes to and from school (this is optional).
I’ve received an information pack through the school – what do I need to do?
What will the research involve for my child?
Why are we doing the additional assessments?
My child has moved school – can they still take part?
I’ve received an information pack through the school – what do I need to do?
Please take some time to read through the information provided in the pack. This includes a reminder about the research we began last year, and information about new assessments that we would like to complete going forward.
Please check we have the correct details, and make a note of any changes for us.
If you would like your child to take part in the new additional assessments, please sign each consent form and return this to the school. Before we do these new measurements, we will also ask your child if they agree to participate.
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What will the research involve for my child?
We will be coming to the school once a year for four years – we are now in the second year of the study.
Children will be taken out of class to go through some simple activities, including:
- measuring height and weight
- measuring size of lungs and how well they are working (spirometry)
- being asked some questions about how they travel to school
- being fitted with an activity monitor to wear for seven days. We will include some instructions with this, and we will return to the school to collect this.
We have introduced some additional assessments for this year going forward. During the health check, we will:
- ask your child to play some simple computer games to measure how the brain is working (eg reaction speed and memory)
- gently take a 'cotton bud' swab from your child’s mouth to collect saliva to analyse genes from.
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Why are we doing the additional assessments?
Air pollution can potentially harm the development of children’s brains, as well as their lungs. We want to find out whether reducing pollution improves children’s brain development by including cognitive tests in our research. Councils in both London and Luton are trying to reduce air pollution levels, which is why we’re assessing children in these areas.
We also want to find out if air pollution exposure in childhood leaves markers on genes that reflect pollution levels over time, and if genes can also protect against harm from air pollution.
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My child has moved school – can they still take part?
If your child has moved to another school in the London or Luton area but you would still like them to take part, please ask the school if they are taking part in the CHILL study or contact us on chill@qmul.ac.uk (London) or chill@beds.ac.uk (Luton).
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