PR001088 (Project)

Description:Major gaps exist in our knowledge of the health impacts of widespread and dramatically expanding exposures among children in the US. Children from rural regions are particularly understudied but may experience higher exposures to contaminants by drinking unregulated water; from household air pollution from wood stoves; and consequent to their rural and changing landscape (e.g., from climate change). This study aims to investigate new hypotheses and contribute critical exposomic data to address major gaps in our knowledge about early life environmental influences on child health and development in a rural US pregnancy cohort. As part of the ECHO Pediatric Cohorts, we are working with the NIEHS/EPA-supported New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study (NHBCS): a rural, ongoing pregnancy cohort that has accrued over 1,500 maternal-infant dyads with planned expansion to include 3,000 maternal-infant pairs. The study aims to: 1. Leverage the extant NHBCS to perform targeted and unsupervised metabolomic analyses of 1,000 cord blood samples and 250 paired maternal gestational blood samples, and assess associations with exposures, early growth, and the infant microbiome; 2. Expand data acquisition, sample collection and participant accrual to more precisely characterize exposures and timing of early life exposures; and 3. Extend follow-up to identify childhood exposures to contaminants (; the home environment; and medical exposures that relate to fetal and childhood growth, childhood obesity, and childhood respiratory infection, asthma, and pulmonary function. Additionally, novel statistical approaches will be used to determine the role of the intestinal and salivary microbiome as mediators of these effects. The collective expertise, methodologies, data, samples and preliminary results from this study will contribute to the planning of the broader ECHO Pediatric Cohorts initiative in order to advance our understanding of the environmental factors early in life that drive childhood and lifelong health.