News and Highlights

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill into law that decreases the state’s acceptable level of arsenic in public water from 10 parts per billion to 5 parts per billion. This new regulation is a result of longstanding and collaborative research efforts from the Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program. “It is a great example of partnership between good science and good policy,” said Community Outreach and Translation Core Director Carolyn Murray, M.D., in an interview with NBC 5 News.

Led by Kari Nadeau, M.D., Ph.D., UC Berkeley/Stanford Children’s Environmental Health Center, researchers found that children in northern California were exposed to higher levels of air pollutants from wildfires than children in the same area exposed to similar-sized controlled fires. The researchers also found that children exposed to wildfires had lower levels of immune cells in their blood and reported worse asthma symptoms compared to children exposed to controlled fires. Controlled fires are low-intensity and decrease the build-up of vegetation which acts as fuel for wildfires.

A collaborative study between researchers from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Drexel University found New York City’s Clean Air Taxi rules helped reduce air pollution in Manhattan neighborhoods. As a result of the rules, nitrous oxide and particulate exhaust emissions and concentrations in the air decreased. Cleaner city air could reduce the likelihood of children developing asthma and other health issues.

Researchers at the University of Southern California Children’s Environmental Health Center found that reduced air pollution in Los Angeles correlates to a 20% drop in new asthma cases in children. The study used data collected as part of the USC Children’s Health Study, which has followed children in Southern California over two decades, along with air quality trends in the region. The study shows health benefits to cleaning up air pollution in a smog-prone area like Los Angeles.

A study by the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment at Johns Hopkins University suggests that a child’s diet could be a key factor in lessening asthma symptoms. The study focused on children in inner city Baltimore and found that children with diets high in omega-3 fatty acids had fewer asthma symptoms. According to the authors, diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids could work with reductions in air pollution to lessen asthma symptoms in children.

The Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment at Johns Hopkins University found vitamin D may protect against asthma symptoms in children experiencing high indoor air pollution exposures in inner city Baltimore. Furthermore, researchers found that obese children living in homes with high indoor air pollution had less severe asthma symptoms if they had higher vitamin D levels. These findings point to the importance of maintaining sufficient vitamin D levels in obese, asthmatic children.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco Pregnancy Exposures to Environmental Chemicals Children’s Center have developed a new screening method that enables detection of hundreds of chemicals in blood samples. This method may help researchers assess chemical exposures in different populations, including pregnant women, and prioritize specific chemicals for future studies.

Researchers from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Children’s Center discovered that rats exposed to an environmentally-relevant mixture of phthalates shortly before and after birth experienced a reduction in neurons, synapses, and size of their medial prefrontal cortex. They also found that exposure led to a deficit in rats’ cognitive ability to process or adapt to new or unexpected conditions.

Investigators at the University of California, Berkeley Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment launched two new webpages using colorful infographics and relatable story-telling to share tips about protecting children from leukemia. The webpages, “Rosa and Carlos Plan a Family” and “Dirty Little Secrets About House Dust,” are available in in English and Spanish.

Investigators at the Emory Center for Children’s Health, the Environment, the Microbiome, and Metabolomics launched a social impact campaign called “Know Better, Live Better.” Geared towards African American women, the campaign shares educational resources, videos, and tips to help protect mothers and their children from harmful chemical exposures.

Researchers from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health are the first to show that levels of childhood exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a flame retardant once widely used in consumer products, significantly decreased over a 15-year period (between 1998 and 2013).

Investigators at the University of California, San Francisco Pregnancy Exposures to Environmental Chemicals Children’s Center created a series of short videos featuring puppets as correspondents from 60 Minutes. The purpose of these videos, called “60 MiNueTs,” is to introduce the general public to issues and challenges related to environmental health policy.

A recent study from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health indicated that prenatal exposure to air pollutants, specifically polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, may be associated with shorter telomere length in a cohort of Chinese newborns. Researchers conducted a study of newborns born before and after the 2004 closure of a coal-burning power plant in Tongliang, China. Results showed that children born before closure of the plant had shorter telomeres than those who were conceived and born after the plant’s operations.

Todd Whitehead, Ph.D., career development investigator for the University of California, Berkeley Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment, was recognized as one of 20 pioneers under 40 in environmental public health by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. As part of this recognition, Whitehead was given an opportunity to present during a webinar where he shared more about the Center’s research.

An op-ed article about the risks that different exposures pose to the fetus and developing children by Frederica Perera, Dr.P.H., director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, was published in The New York Times.

A group of Children’s Centers investigators co-authored a paper about the importance of small-magnitude effect sizes in epigenetic points for children’s environmental health research. The paper was published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The Southern California Children’s Environmental Health Center organized and hosted a “Parks, Pollution, and Obesity” conference which was attended by more than 200 community, academic, and decision-making stakeholders with expertise in environmental health, urban design, and parks planning.

Investigators at the UC Berkeley Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment (CIRCLE) developed educational materials that involve creative messaging about the role of pre-conception and prenatal environmental influences on health, and positive actions to take in mitigating risk of exposure.

Dana Dolinoy, Ph.D., investigator at the University of Michigan Children’s Center, received the Outstanding Young Investigator award from the Society of Toxicology, Women in Toxicology group in spring 2017.

Margaret Karagas, Ph.D., director for the Dartmouth Center for Children’s Environmental Health was interviewed by Health.com about ways to reduce dietary arsenic exposure .

Researchers from the Southern California Children’s Environmental Health Center determined that children with asthma may be more likely become obese later in childhood or adolescence.

Findings from an animal study at the Duke Center on Neurodevelopment and Improving Children’s Health following Environmental Tobacco Smoke exposure (NICHES) showed harmful effects of secondhand smoke even before pregnancy, which raises caution for women of childbearing age.

A paper authored by investigators at the Dartmouth Center for Children’s Environmental Health was named as one of several NIEHS 2016 Papers of the Year. This paper, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, is one of the first to report an association between low-level arsenic exposure during pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Researchers from the Southern California Children’s Environmental Health Center authored a comprehensive report, “The effects of policy-driven air quality improvements on children’s respiratory health,” which was published by the Health Effects Institute (HEI). A synopsis of the report is also available from the HEI.

Researchers at the Emory Center for Children's Health, the Environment, the Microbiome, and Metabolomics (C-CHEM2) and community collaboratorscreated a short documentary to introduce their Center and children’s environmental health topics to the African-American community in metro Atlanta.

Researchers from the UCSF Pregnancy Exposures to Environmental Chemicals Children’s Center measured exposure to 59 toxic chemicals in pregnant women and their newborns, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs).

The Northeastern Center for Research on Early Childhood Exposure and Development (CRECE) in Puerto Rico held a continuing education event to enhance speech language pathology pratictioners’ and graduate students’ knowledge about the effects of environmental exposures on children.

Barbara Fiese, Community Outreach and Translation Core lead for the Children’s Environmental Health Research Center at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was featured in a NIEHS-sponsored podcast on ways to reduce harmful exposures and create a healthy environment in the child-care setting.