The federal program that monitors 9/11 health effects is preparing to launch the first large research effort focused on people who were children, teenagers, young adults, or still in the womb when the World Trade Center collapsed. The CDC said last month it will seek applications from researchers to set up a World Trade Center Youth Research Coordinating Center and to identify and follow a Youth Research Cohort, Reuters reported.
The step arrives on the eve of the attacks' 25th anniversary and targets a long-recognized gap. Roughly 25,000 children were living or attending school near lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, and thousands more lived in surrounding neighborhoods. Very few were enrolled in the government-funded follow-up studies, which focused mainly on first responders and adult survivors.
