|
|
Research Centers EPA's Science To Achieve Results (STAR) Program
Centers of Excellence in
Environmental Toxicants and Neuro-Developmental Impairment in Inner City Children is the unifying scientific theme of the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. This Center resides within the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, in the Division of Environmental Health Science. Children living in poverty in inner-city communities suffer some of the heaviest exposures to environmental toxicants in the United States. The goals of the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research are (1) to identify linkages between environmental toxicants and neuro-developmental dysfunction in inner-city children; (2) to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms by which environmental toxicants can cause developmental impairment; and (3) to prevent neuro-developmental dysfunction of environmental origin in urban children. The research and prevention programs of the Center will focus on a range of neurodevelopmental toxicants encountered in the inner city: (1) pesticides-legal insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, and illegal "street" pesticides such as methyl Darathion. tres pasitos and tiza china; (2) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); and (3) lead. Patterns of exposure to these toxicants will be assessed. Adverse developmental outcomes will be examined through epidemiological studies and will include loss of intelligence, delayed attainment of developmental milestones, alteration of behavior and diminished life achievement; potential linkages of these problems to environmental exposures will be studied and etiologic mechanisms elucidated. New aDDroaches to prevention will be evaluated. The Center includes five interdisciplinary research projects that link epidemiological and basic biological research at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and the New York Academy of Medicine's Center of Urban Epidemiologic Studies with the Boriken Neighborhood Health Center, with the East Harlem Community Health Committee and with an extensive network of community-based organizations in East Harlem. Center Abstract: Research Projects: Growing Up Health In East Harlem: Pesticide Exposure Epidemiologic Research: Pesticides and Neurological Development Molecular Genetic Research: Variation in Susceptibility to Pesticides Experimental Neurodevelopmental Study: PCB neuroendocrine effects
Return to the top of the page
|
|