Penn Medicine, CHOP researchers receive grant to study environmental impacts on children's health

The National Institutes of Health awarded $50 million to Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers to investigate how environmental factors during pregnancy and early life impact children’s long-term health.

The study will contribute to the NIH’s Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Program, which is focused on building a national cohort of research subjects to understand children’s health. Penn and CHOP researchers will enroll up to 2,500 pregnant people and children into the ECHO cohort and follow the infants over seven years, according to the CHOP news release. 

Heather Burris, an attending neonatologist at CHOP and co-lead investigator of the project, told CHOP that the grant project would help to illuminate the connection between neighborhood environmental exposures and health inequities. 

“We know that communities are not equally exposed to environmental toxicants, and we also know that health inequities and disparities are an ongoing public health problem,” Burris said.

Prior research has demonstrated the presence of racial disparities in infant outcomes. The Philadelphia study will help form a more comprehensive understanding of how environmental hazards can disproportionately affect children of color, a demographic that is not adequately represented in some other study locations, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Epidemiology professor Sunni Mumford, who is a co-lead investigator in the study and co-director of the Women’s Health Clinical Research Center, told CHOP that the two hospitals serve a diverse population of patients, including those who are Black and insured by Medicaid. 

“By contributing to the national ECHO Cohort, our research will benefit not only our institutional and neighborhood communities but also communities across the country," Mumford said.

Researchers will track broader neighborhood factors such as walkability, pollution, and extreme temperature. They will also evaluate the influence of individual behavior during pregnancy, such as diet and physical activity. This will be the first study to investigate how both macro- and micro-environmental factors impact maternal-child health, according to CHOP.

ECHO cohort sites across the nation focus on a core group of data elements: Demographics, early development, genetic influences, and environmental factors. As of September 2023, the program has collected data from over 107,000 participants. 

“The culture of clinical research, excellent scientific environment, and diverse population makes Penn and CHOP the ideal place to innovate in the field of maternal-child health equity,” Sara DeMauro, attending neonatologist at CHOP and co-lead investigator, said in the CHOP news release.