About Participation in the Study

Who is eligible to participate?

Adult children of participants in the Beaver Dam Eye Study and Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study may participate in the Beaver Dam Offspring Study.

What does participation involve?

Participants are invited to participate in a comprehensive study examination about every 5 years. The components of the study examination may vary by study phase. The 10-year follow-up examination phase (2015-2017) included the following:

Testing your:

  • hearing
  • vision
  • sense of smell
  • memory

Assessing your cardiovascular health with:

  • blood pressure measures
  • carotid artery ultrasound scan

Collecting blood samples for:

  • diabetes assessment
  • future testing

The 10-year follow-up exam took approximately 2.5 hours to complete and did not include dilating the eyes.

Participants can receive a written report with their study results about 5 weeks after their examination and are personally made aware of any clinically significant findings from the evaluations.