Toxicant Exposures and Child Development: Capitalizing on Cutting-Edge Technology and Fostering Community Collaboration

• In Event: 2-096 - Advances in Community Engagement and Measurement in Longitudinal Cohort Studies

Integrative Statement

A multitude of factors contribute to persistent health disparities, including early life adversity and harmful environmental exposures (Gee & Payne-Sturges, 2004; Shonkoff, Boyce, & McEwen, 2009). Children living in urban environments, especially racial minority youth, are more likely to encounter harmful environmental conditions, including exposure to metal toxicants (Sampson & Winter, 2016). Moreover, these exposures often begin before birth, with mounting evidence linking prenatal exposures to poorer postnatal developmental outcomes (Valeri et al., 2017). Less is known about how toxicant exposures impact development, including how exposures may alter fetal neural development, which could be an important mechanism linking toxicant exposures to postnatal developmental outcomes. Given the aforementioned disparities in health and environmental exposures, it is particularly important to understand these processes in urban, racial minority populations. However, past misdeeds including the Tuskegee syphilis study have contributed to mistrust of scientists and reluctance to engage in research among racial minority populations (Freimuth et al., 2001). In our program of research, we seek to understand the role of toxicant exposures in at-risk children’s fetal and postnatal development using an approach that capitalizes on cutting-edge technology while also fostering crucial, enduring connections with the local community.

Our longitudinal cohort was initiated in collaboration with an urban medical center to understand fetal neurodevelopment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Over 88% of participants are from a racial or ethnic minority background. Subsequent waves of postnatal data collection, with high retention, have occurred at 7 months, 3 years, and 5 years to track children’s development. Our current follow-up capitalizes on the fact that children are beginning to naturally shed their deciduous (baby) teeth, allowing us (with parental permission) to collect naturally shed teeth and assay prenatal exposures to heavy metals (e.g., lead) and essential elements (e.g., zinc). Members of our research team have pioneered methods to assay week-to-week exposures from teeth, which will allow us to connect temporal indicators of fetal exposure to specific fMRI-derived markers of fetal neural connectivity and to postnatal development. An additional focus on modifiable psychosocial factors, including the early parent-child relationship, will directly inform prevention and intervention strategies for this vulnerable population.

This program of research is unique because we have made targeted, sustained efforts to foster community engagement in order to build and maintain trust and to facilitate subsequent translation of findings into local, community-driven prevention strategies. With support from a local NIEHS-funded center that focuses on environmental exposures in the urban context, we have brought together the director of the center’s community outreach core, leaders from local agencies serving children, and university representatives. In what we have termed the “community science group”, we are uncovering the best ways to engage the community in environmental exposures research and how research findings from the longitudinal cohort can inform the community agencies’ work and vice versa. The broader, longer-term goal is to foster a program of community-based team science that could directly impact the surrounding urban community, which stands in contrast to most traditional university-based research.

Authors

• Christopher Trentacosta, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Manish Arora, Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai
  Non-Presenting Author

• Brendan Coyle, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Moriah E. Thomason, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author