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Mt. Sinai Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center Research Projects

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Original Projects: 1998-2003

Project 1: Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem, Barbara Brenner, DrPH.

This project enrolled 131 Black & Latina families into a study of pesticide and PCB exposure reduction and implementation of Integrated Pest Management (Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem).

Project 2: Exposure to Indoor Pesticides and PCBs and their effects on Growth and Neurodevelopment in Urban Children, Gertrud Berkowitz, PhD.

This project enrolled 404 families to study in utero exposoure to pesticides and infant growth and neurodevelopment.

Project 3: Genetics of Chlorpyrifos Risk in Minority Populations, James Wetmur, PhD. 

This project developed new high-throughput techniques for geno-, pheno-and haplotyping to assess metabolic capacity for organophosphate pesticides.

Project 4: Prenatal PCB Exposure and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Adolescence and Adulthood, Thomas Matte, MD.

This project evaluated neurologic and development measures through age 17 in relation to prenatal PCB exposure among 152 Black children with prenatal serum from 1960’s.

Project 5: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Environmental Toxicants During Development, Andrea C. Gore, PhD.

This project examined the effect of certain environmental toxicants on growth and GnRH neurons in female rats and in the GT1-7 neuronal cell lines.   

Current Projects: 2003-2008

Project 1:  “Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem.”
Project lead: Barbara Brenner DrPH, Maida Galvez MD

This project is examining the built-environment, or neighborhood characteristics, associated endocrine disrupting, or ED exposures, and their effects on child growth and development. 

Investigators are characterizing exposures and potential sources of EDs (such as personal care products), including phthalates and alkyl phenols, among 6-8-year-old children in East Harlem. To characterize the built environment, researchers have mapped precise street addresses of parks, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants in the neighborhood and this GIS (Geographic Information Systems) work will be extended. Researchers plan an intervention to test specific products for sources of EDs and to attempt exposure reduction in families with accompanying biomarker measures. Researchers are measuring body size (including percent body fat) and physical activity in a cohort of 300 children. Pedometers have been validated as a tool to measure physical activity.

Project 2 : Pesticides, Endocrine Disruptors, Childhood Growth and Development
Project lead: Stephanie Engel PhD

This projectis a prospective epidemiological study to characterize associations between maternal exposures to EDs during pregnancy and infant development in a birth cohort.

Researchers began studying an ethnically diverse group of over 400 urban children from birth onwards during the previous 5-year funding cycle, and those children are now 4-7 years of age. Mt. Sinai researchers began measuring pesticide exposure in the past with this group, and investigated gene-environment interactions and their impact on infant growth and neurodevelopment. Researchers are continuing to follow 300 of these families, and have modified the research focus to measure EDs in maternal urine taken in the 3 rd trimester of pregnancy, studying whether in utero exposures to EDs and other toxicants are associated with developmental delays. This project includes measurements of neurodevelopment and behavioral evaluations (together with researcher Rick Canfield of Cornell) and body size (including percent body fat).

Project 3:  Genetics of Phthalate and Bisphenol A Risk In Minority Populations. James G. Wetmur PhD, Jia Chen PhD

Investigators are continuing in this project to develop measures of individual susceptibility, focusing on metabolism of EDs. Studies of susceptibility factors in concert with environmental exposures and in relation to development are being undertaken with families in Project 2. 

Researchers are assessing individual susceptibility related to various environmental exposures, using genotyping, phenotyping and haplotyping (a group of genes inherited as a unit) of common variants in metabolic pathways for pesticides, lipids and EDs.

The Mount Sinai Children’s Center is also conducting the World Trade Center Pregnancy Outcome Study, following a cohort of women who were pregnant on 9/11/01 and were directly exposed to airborne toxicants at the WTC site. Among the factors being measured are child development, environmental exposures, maternal and child stress.

Centers Funded By:
EPA Home NIEHS Centers for Children's Environmental Health

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