EOHSI

To identify environmental risk factors for chronic disease in children, the U.S. Congress directed the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) through the Children’s Health Act of 2000 to undertake the National Children’s Study, a prospective study of a nationally representative cohort of 100,000 U.S.-born children to be followed from pregnancy to age twenty-one years.

NICHD is conducting the Study in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Environmental risk factors, including chemical, physical, biological and psychosocial factors, will be assessed on multiple levels. Recruitment is planned at 105 sites across the US and began in 2006 at seven Vanguard Sites. The Exposure Science Division of EOHSI currently participates in the Queens Vanguard Center and is part of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) consortium for 7 other counties distributed between NY and NJ. The respective counties are: Manhattan, Nassau, Brooklyn, and Monroe in NY; and Passaic, Middlesex, and Warren in NJ. It is anticipated that the National Children’s Study will provide invaluable information on preventable risk factors for such chronic diseases as asthma; certain birth defects; neurobehavioral syndromes such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and schizophrenia; and obesity.

Some of the NCS team members at EOHSI: Kris Mohan, Shahnaz Alimokhtari, Sastry Isukapalli, Kathy Black

The Division of Exposure Science continues to lead the exposure assessment portion of the Consortium. Major roles are played by Dr. Lioy (Co-PI for the Consortium) and Drs. Weisel and Georgopoulos. Included are home sampling, and the development of segment and participant level Exposure Indices (EI) using extant databases from a verity of organizations (see citation).

We are also conducting formative research projects for the NCS on environmental sampling and the analysis of volatiles and semivolatile compounds, and the utilization of the Exposure Indices in other counties.

Read the Queens Vanguard Center Winter 2011 Newsletter.

Citation: Lioy P.J., Isukapalli S., Trasande L., Thorpe L., Dellarco M., Weisel C., Georgopoulos P.G., Yung C., Brown M. and Landrigan P. (2009). Using national and local extant data to characterize environmental exposures in the National Children’s Study (NCS): Queens County, New York. Environmental Health Perspectives 117(10): 1494-1504. DOI:10.1289/ehp.0900623. PMCID:PMC2790501.

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