PROVIDENCE — Brown University and Women & Infants Hospital have been chosen to participate in an ambitious nationwide study that will follow the health of 100,000 children — from before birth through age 21.

As part of the National Children’s Study, Brown and the hospital will receive $14.1 million in federal money to gather data on 1,000 newborns in Providence County, in some cases by recruiting their mothers even before the baby is conceived.

The study, a vast and unprecedented undertaking by several federal agencies, aims to identify the genetic and environmental factors that lead to health, learning and behavioral problems, looking at everything from a pregnant mother’s diet to the soil and water around the home. Researchers hope to understand why disorders such as autism, asthma, diabetes and obesity are on the rise among America’s children.

“U.S. children are not healthy,” said Stephen L. Buka, the Brown professor who is principal investigator of the National Children’s Study in Providence. “Where should we best be putting our efforts to improve children’s health? … A project of this scope provides us scientists with the knowledge that allows us to know how to act.”

Providence County, where 60 percent of Rhode Islanders live, is among 105 study locations chosen by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development because, added together, people living in those locations are representative of the entire U.S. population.

Yesterday, the institute announced the 22 research centers that will collect data from 26 of those locations. Governor Carcieri joined Brown and hospital officials on campus to celebrate what they called the project’s multiple benefits to Rhode Island.

“I’m up here beaming,” Carcieri said. “I’m beaming for two reasons. One for Brown, my alma mater. … But I’m also beaming for the state of Rhode Island.” Carcieri said the study would create jobs and enable Rhode Island to build economically on its strengths in biomedical research.

The $14.1 million, to be spread over the first five years of the project, is one of the largest National Institutes of Health grants to Brown in the past decade, and stands as a showy feather in the university’s cap.

“This is viewed nationally as a signature award,” said Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, dean of medicine and biological sciences. “It really is one of those awards that you cannot do without if you want to be at the leading edge.”

Additionally, the research will tighten relationships among Brown, the hospitals, and the community, positioning Rhode Island researchers for other such grants in the future. “People describe Rhode Island as having the potential for being the ideal setting for public-health research,” Buka said.

Although it will be led by Brown and Women & Infants, the project involves a wide-ranging collaboration including the state Department of Health, the City of Providence, the City of Pawtucket, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island and Landmark Medical Center.

THE RESEARCH STARTS with efforts to educate and engage the 16 communities in the county, which covers the northern half of the state. Then researchers will identify 15,000 families who are statistically representative of Providence County and go knock on their doors. If a household includes a woman age 18 to 45, they will ask if she is pregnant — or trying to get pregnant — and then ask the woman to participate in the study.

Researchers will visit participants regularly to gather data about their lives, including testing the air, water, soil, and noise levels around the home and looking at lifestyle, family history and social factors. They will also collect blood and other biological samples. They will track the children’s health as they grow, up to age 21.

These are some of the questions the study is investigating: How does a pregnant mother’s diet and weight gain affect both mother and child? What is the role of infections in childhood development, asthma, obesity and heart disease? How do genes and the environment interact to promote or prevent violent behavior in teenagers? Are lack of exercise and poor diet the only reasons why many children are overweight? How do city and neighborhood planning and construction encourage or discourage injuries?

“In the past,” said Constance A. Howes, president and chief executive officer of Women & Infants Hospital, “we’ve studied the cause of disease, we’ve studied treatment and we’ve looked at prevention. But this study enables us to put all of that together.”

In addition to the federal money, Brown has committed $1 million toward the project and Women & Infants $500,000.

Sarah Keim, deputy director of the study’s national program office, said that research centers were allowed to apply to work in any county in their own state or a contiguous state, but she would not reveal how many had applied to work in Providence County. The study centers were chosen for their ability to collect data and build community networks.

But most of the 105 locations were not funded in this round of the study, and there are no plans to add additional research centers, Keim said. Instead, the current group of research centers can apply to pick up other areas in the next round of funding.

Buka said that Brown would probably apply to expand into Bristol County, Mass. The other New England institutions chosen for the project are the University of Massachusetts in Worcester and Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

The first results from the project, focusing on pregnancy outcomes, are expected in 2012.

For more information on the National Children’s Study, go to http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov

ffreyer@projo.com