![[logo] US EPA](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20081105043242im_/http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Basic Information
Site Navigation
 |
Research Project Search
Children are likely to be more vulnerable than adults to the effects of environmental contaminants. To better understand the effects of children’s exposures, and to explore ways to reduce children’s risks from environmental toxicants, the EPA, through the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants program, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are supporting a network of Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. A primary goal of the program is the accelerated application of basic research findings into clinical intervention strategies with a view towards preventing adverse health outcomes.
The Centers
The first eight Centers were established in 1998 to study the effects of environmental factors, such as pesticides and air pollution, on childhood asthma and children’s growth and development. Four more Centers were established in 2001 to study the basis of neurodevelopmental and behavioral disorders such as autism. Additional Centers were established in 2004 and 2007 to investigate how exposure to mixtures of chemicals affect children’s health and to study environmentally driven disparities in birth outcomes. Each Center fosters community participation in one or more studies.
The Children's Centers conduct observational studies involving a number of prevalent environmental exposures and outcomes, plus intervention studies (Kimmel, Collman et al. 2005). A primary aim of the program is to promote multidisciplinary interactions among basic, clinical and behavioral scientists through university and community partnerships, and to accelerate translation of basic research findings into clinical prevention or intervention strategies. A second aim is to support a coordinated nationwide network of scientists and community advocacy groups working together to address the role of environmental exposures in children's health, and to enhance community-level capacity to identify and address environmental health threats and to identify opportunities for prevention.
Each Center is designed around a central theme addressing important questions in understanding the role of exposures in the areas of respiratory disease, childhood learning, birth outcomes and growth and development including developmental disabilities and obesity. The program's research priorities include studying exposures to toxicants such as agricultural and urban pesticides, air pollution, allergens, endocrine disruptors (EDs), lead, mercury, polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). In addition, the program includes research on genetic susceptibility and the role of the psychosocial environment on children's health. A requirement for each Center is the inclusion of a project that uses community-based participatory research methods.
Using a variety of methods, the Children's Centers have made many advances that would not have been possible without a coordinated network of Centers to foster mutli- and interdisciplinary research targeted at understanding children's environmental health risks and studying effective ways to reduce them. For example, the Centers have shown that blood and urine specimens from pregnant women show measurable levels of pesticides, suggesting that the fetus is exposed to these chemicals during early development (Castorina et al. 2003, Whyatt et al. 2003).
They have shown that children in urban and rural environments are exposed to a complex mix of agricultural and household pesticides, ETS and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and negative social factors that can affect their early growth and development (Berkowitz et al. 2004, Fenster et al. 2004, Perera et al. 2004, Rauh et al. 2004).
The Centers have demonstrated that exposure to lead in the urban environment can have lifelong effects such as behavioral problems and criminal behavior in early adult life (Ris et al. 2004). In the area of air pollution and asthma, the Centers have elucidated the mechanism of how exposure to pollution can induce an inflammatory process in the lung (Walters et al. 2002) and have shown that air pollution can produce increased exacerbation of asthma symptoms and increased school absences (Gilliland et al. 2003, McConnell et al. 2003). Intervention studies have shown that the household environment can be cleaned so that allergens from dust mites and cockroaches are significantly reduced, lowering the incidence of asthma symptoms in children (Eggleston et al. 2004).
--Adapted from Kimmel CA, Collman GW, Fields N, Eskenazi B 2005. Lessons learned for the National Children's Study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. Environmental Health Perspectives 2005 Oct;113(10):1414-8. This publication is part of a Mini-Monograph written collectively by the Children's Centers and published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Full-Text | Abstract | PubMed
References
Berkowitz GS, Wetmur JG, Birman-Deych E, Obel J, Lapinski RH, Godbold JH, Holzman IR, Wolff MS. 2004. In utero pesticide exposure, maternal paraoxonase activity, and head circumference. Environmental Health Perspectives 112:388–391. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Castorina R, Bradman A, McKone TE, Barr DB, Harnly ME, Eskenazi B. 2003. Cumulative organophosphate pesticide exposure and risk assessment among pregnant women living in an agricultural community: a case study from the CHAMACOS cohort. Environmental Health Perspectives 111:1779–1782. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Eggleston PA, Butz A, Rand C, Curtin-Brosnan J, Kanchanaraksa S, Swartz L, Breysse P, Buckley T, Diette G, Merriman B, Krishnan JA. 2004. Home environmental treatment improves asthma in inner city children [Abstract]. Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology: official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology 113:S179. Abstract | PubMed
Fenster L, Eskenazi B, Anderson M, Bradman A, Harley K, Hernandez H, Hubbard A, Barr DB. 2004. Association of in utero organophosphate pesticide exposure and fetal growth and length of gestation in an agricultural population. Environmental Health Perspectives 112:1116–1124. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Gilliland FD, Berhane K, Islam T, Wenten M, Rappaport E, Avol E, Gauderman WJ, McConnell R, Peters JM. 2003. Environmental tobacco smoke and absenteeism related to respiratory illness in school children. American Journal of Epidemiology 157:861–869. Abstract | PubMed
McConnell R, Berhane K, Gilliland F, Molitor J, Thomas D, Lurmann F, Avol E, Gauderman WJ, Peters JM. 2003. Prospective study of air pollution and bronchitic symptoms in children with asthma. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 168:790–797. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Perera FP, Rauh V, Whyatt RM, Tsai WY, Bernert JT, Tu YH, Andrews H, Ramirez J, Qu L, Tang D. 2004. Molecular evidence of an interaction between prenatal environmental exposures and birth outcomes in a multiethnic population. Environmental Health Perspectives 112:626–630. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Rauh VA, Whyatt RM, Garfinkel R, Andrews H, Hoepner L, Reyes A, Diaz D, Camann D, Perera FP. 2004. Developmental effects of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and material hardship among inner-city children. Neurotoxicology and Teratology 26:373–385. Abstract | PubMed
Ris MD, Dietrich KN, Succop PA, Berger OG, Bornschein RL. 2004. Early exposure to lead and neuropsychological outcome in adolescence. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 10(2):261–270. Abstract | PubMed
Walters DM, Breysse PN, Schofield B, Wills-Karp M. 2002. Complement factor 3 mediates particulate matter-induced airway hyperresponsiveness. American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology 27(4):413–418. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
Whyatt RM, Barr DB, Camann DE, Kinney PL, Barr JR, Andrews HF, Hoepner LA, Garfinkel R, Hazi Y, Reyes A, Ramirez J, Cosme Y, Perera FP. 2003. Contemporary-use pesticides in personal air samples during pregnancy and blood samples at delivery among urban minority mothers and newborns. Environmental Health Perspectives 111:749–756. Full-Text PDF (124 KB, 4pp, about PDF) | Abstract | PubMed
More information about the studies above are located on the Research Results and Studies page.
For more information on the Children’s Centers, see http://www.epa.gov/ncer/centers/cecehdpr/98 and http://www.epa.gov/ncer/centers/cecehdpr/01
NIEHS offers additional information about the Children’s Centers and their research at: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/translat/children/children.htm
The EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection provides information about environmental risks for children at: http://www.epa.gov/children
(PDF file, 2pp., 117Kb, About PDF)
Centers Funded By: 