PRENATAL WTC CHEMICAL EXPOSURES, BIRTH OUTCOMES AND CARDIOMETABOLIC RISKS-RESUBMISSION-1

Project SummaryNYU School of Medicine, the Mailman School of Public Health, the Wadsworth Laboratories of the NYSDepartment of Health, and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center respond to PAR-16-098, proposing toleverage two unique and contemporaneous cohorts to examine chemical and psychosocial stressors inrelationship to proximity to the WTC site and self-reported exposures, and evaluate birth, neurodevelopmentand cardiometabolic outcomes. The first is comprised of mothers who delivered in one of three lowerManhattan hospitals in the months after the disaster, and the other is the northern Manhattan-based ColumbiaChildren's Environmental Health Center (NM) cohort. The NM cohort includes children born just before andafter September 11, 2001 permitting nested evaluations of stress-related exposures. Except forcardiometabolic outcomes, the data are already available including freshly obtained measurements of POPs,which we will extend to include PFCs with NIOSH support. In both populations, neurodevelopmental outcomeshave been assessed through 6-7 years of age. Taking advantage of temporal and geographic differences inthese cohorts, we will compare both psychosocial and chemical exposures and their association with outcomesamong children who were and were not prenatally exposed to the WTC disaster. This study leveragespreviously measured biomarkers and prospectively collected data on psychosocial stress. In addition, we willbe the first to examine physical health of adolescents exposed in utero to the WTC disaster. While otherstudies have examined non-invasive measurements of central and peripheral arterial stiffness, ours is one ofthe first to examine chemical exposures in relation to these endpoints in adolescence. Preclinical measuresincluded in the proposed project may be more sensitive cardiovascular endpoints reflecting environmentalinfluences in homogeneous populations such as young children and adolescents. The study is led by aninternational leader in children's environmental health who has conducted the only in-depth physical healthstudies of children exposed to the disaster (Trasande) with leaders of two large birth cohorts, one includingchildren born in three lower Manhattan hospitals; and another of upper Manhattan children that will serve as acomparison (Herbstman, Perera, and Rauh). If WTC chemical exposures are associated with these outcomes,the study findings could facilitate proactive interventions such as treatment with antihypertensive medicationswhich have been documented to prolong survival among adults with suboptimal cardiovascular profile.