In the mid-1980s, CDC conducted the Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Study (MADDS), a study of developmental disabilities (including cerebral palsy) in 10-year-old children living in metropolitan Atlanta. A comparison group of children who did not have any disabilities also took part in the study. The Follow-Up Study of Children with Developmental Disabilities contacted many of the original study participants years later, when they were young adults. They were asked questions about their health, living arrangements, socialization, employment, quality of life, service utilization, and independence. We have started analyzing the information collected in the Follow-Up Study and will be looking at such issues as what environmental factors (for example, wheelchair ramps) make it easier for young adults with disabilities to carry out their daily activities, pain among young adults with disabilities, use of health resources by young adults with disabilities, and obesity among young adults with disabilities. Study results will be posted on this Web site as they become available.  [Read more about MADDS]

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Date: October 29, 2004
Content source: National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities