PI, Institution:
Frederica Perera, Julie Beth Herbstman; Columbia University Health Sciences

Grant: R24ES029489

Description:
The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) cohorts include more than 1,000 children enrolled in the Mothers and Newborns cohort, the Sibling/Hermanos cohort, and the Fair Start cohort. Starting in 1998, the CCCEH enrolled 727 Latina and African-American women from New York City for its Mothers and Newborns cohort. In 2008, mothers from this cohort who became pregnant with a subsequent child were invited to enroll in the Sibling/Hermanos (S/H) cohort, which now follows 129 younger siblings of the children from the M/N cohort. Since 2015, the CCCEH has been recruiting mother-child pairs for a new study, known as Fair Start (FS), to continue assessment on the impact of prenatal environmental exposures on neurodevelopmental and other health outcomes using novel exposure methods and tools. For more information about the Mothers and Newborns cohort, visit the NIEHS Epidemiology Resources webpage.

Cohort Maintenance & Enrichment Activities:
Laying the groundwork for the addition of new mechanistic biomarkers to reflect exposure to environmental mixtures assess cumulative oxidative damage in mitochondrial DNA from multiple prenatal environmental exposures and integrate information from high-throughput screening programs to inform mixture models based on mitochondrial toxicity. Promoting participant engagement through user-friendly electronic technology, increasing volunteer payments. Increasing community outreach efforts and working with community partners to reach a wider range of the population, including forming a Youth Council for teenagers. Building new partnerships and providing new training opportunities.

Data Management & Sharing Activities:
Enhancing the basic laboratory and data management infrastructures to preserve the integrity and quality of biospecimen collection, storage, and inventory. Ensuring quality control and improving coordination of the laboratory database with the Data Management Core. Enriching infrastructure by supporting a new Data Manager who will assist with using new technologies for project coordination, contacting subjects, data capture, and data sharing.

Data Access:
Currently, data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants. Over the course of this grant, we will be evaluating and implementing new procedures for data sharing.

Please see NIH RePORTER for publications associated with this R24 grant.