News and Highlights

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.