EPA/NIEHS Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers (CEHCs)

Protecting Children’s Health for a Lifetime

For many reasons, children are likely to be more vulnerable than adults to the effects of environmental contaminants. To better understand the effects of these exposures on children's health, the EPA/NIEHS Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers ("Children's Centers") were established to explore ways to reduce children's health risks from environmental factors. The program is jointly funded by EPA through the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants program, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

The long-range goals of the program include understanding how environmental factors affect children's health, and promoting translation of basic research findings into intervention and prevention methods to prevent adverse health outcomes.

Multidiscipilnary Program: fostering research collaborations among basic, clinical, and behavioral scientists with participation from local communities.

The EPA/NIEHS Children’s Centers continue to contribute to understanding complex interactions between the environment, genetics, and other factors and how those interactions may affect children’s health from preconception to young adulthood.

Emerging Areas of Research Include

Obesity: What is the role of environmental factors in the epidemic of obesity among our nation’s children?
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: How are widespread exposures to chemicals that interfere with the body’s hormones affecting children, particularly during vulnerable windows of development?
Epigenetics: How do modifications to DNA resulting from diet, aging, stress, and/or environmental exposures affect our children or our grandchildren?

News

STAR Research Finds Three Risk Factors for Developing Childhood Asthma
STAR Research at Columbia’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health, shows a joint effect between pre term exposure to PAH’s and post term exposure of young children to cockroach allergens.
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Baby with Bottle BPA May Lower Essential Hormones in Pregnant Women and Baby Boys
Supported in part by research at the EPA/NIEHS Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley, a new study appears to link the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), to changes in thyroidal hormonal levels in pregnant women and infant boys.
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Mattew Davis Rice Consumption May Expose Children to Arsenic
Supported in part by research at the EPA/NIEHS Dartmouth Children's Center, a new study suggests that rice consumption can expose U.S. children to arsenic.
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P3 Logo Phthalates in Plastics Raise Risk of Asthma in Children
STAR researchers at Columbia University's Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Research Center have found that children exposed to phthalates have elevated risk of asthma-related airway inflammation.
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Megan Horton, PhD Boys More Vulnerable to Memory Impairment from Insecticide Chlorpyrifos than Girls
STAR researcher Megan Horton at the Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Research Center at Columbia University has published research results showing that after prenatal exposure to the insecticide chrlorpyrifos (CPF), boys at age seven had greater memory impairment than girls with similar exposures, leading to an overall lower IQ. (CFDA: 66.509)
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Prenatal Exposure to Insecticide Chlorpyrifos Linked to Alterations in Brain Structure and Cognition
Even low to moderate levels of exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos during pregnancy may lead to long-term, potentially irreversible changes in the brain structure of the child, according to a new brain imaging study by researchers from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Duke University Medical Center, Emory University, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
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For these, and other articles about the centers, see the Newsroom.

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Local Community Partnerships are integral to the work of the Centers, supporting research, educational outreach, and intervention projects.