NIEHS will conduct high-quality, innovative environmental health sciences research. Research on the effects of the environment on biological systems and processes is central to the NIEHS mission to understand how the environment affects human health. State-of-the-art biomedical tools help produce new understanding of the effects of specific exposures up to and including the full “exposome,” which represents the compilation of exposures over the lifespan. The exposome will help to establish the knowledge base of environmental effects on biology and health from the subcellular level to the whole individual. NIEHS’ Research Areas of Emphasis include group and population studies in environmental epidemiology, as well as clinical studies aimed at understanding risk and beneficial factors for a wide variety of environmentally mediated diseases and conditions. Efforts are focused on understanding effects on processes and mechanisms across the lifespan, in different individuals and in different sexes, including collaboration on activities with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health. NIEHS will maintain a focus on mechanisms during windows of susceptibility through multiple developmental stages. Another priority is to continue to move toward a deeper understanding of individual variability in response to the environment that arise from multiple factors (genetic, epigenetic, underlying health status, among others). NIEHS will continue to develop, validate, and support new tools and methods necessary for advancing the research described in this plan.
NIEHS research will continue to focus on environmental exposures of special interest and concern for public health, ranging from widespread chemical exposures; nonchemical stressors including social determinants of health; and exposures related to climate change and human activities that impact the environment. Additionally, there will be a focus on better understanding how specific environmental factors can positively impact human health and contribute to the influences that shape human health. The Research Areas of Emphasis represent research approaches that are used to understand the effects of these and other exposures on health. As new data and research bring to light emerging environmental exposures, NIEHS will consider this new information and its readiness to be addressed through NIEHS-supported research.
