Impact/Purpose:

The theme of the Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research (the Center) is to understand the mechanisms (molecular, genetic, age, exposure and environmental factors) that define children’s susceptibility to pesticides, identifying the implications of this susceptibility for development and learning, and to partner with our communities to translate our findings into risk communication, risk management and public health prevention strategies. The specific objectives of our Center are to:

1. Identify cellular, biochemical and molecular mechanisms for the adverse developmental neurotoxicity of pesticides;
2. Identify susceptibility factors for developmental neurotoxicity of pesticides;
3. Improve our understanding of critical pathways of potential pesticide exposure for children;
4. Intervene to reduce children’s potential exposure and health impacts from pesticides;
5. Provide core support for the development and application of risk assessment methods, which will enable our basic research on pesticide toxicity and exposure to inform risk decisions to protect children’s health from pesticides; and
6. Foster partnerships between academic researchers and the community in which information requested by the community and basic research deficiencies/gaps are translated into studies that address the needs of both.

The theme of the Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research (the Center) is to understand the mechanisms (molecular, genetic, age, exposure and environmental factors) that define children’s susceptibility to pesticides, identifying the implications of this susceptibility for development and learning, and to partner with our communities to translate our findings into risk communication, risk management and public health prevention strategies. The specific objectives of our Center are to:

1. Identify cellular, biochemical and molecular mechanisms for the adverse developmental neurotoxicity of pesticides;
2. Identify susceptibility factors for developmental neurotoxicity of pesticides;
3. Improve our understanding of critical pathways of potential pesticide exposure for children;
4. Intervene to reduce children’s potential exposure and health impacts from pesticides;
5. Provide core support for the development and application of risk assessment methods, which will enable our basic research on pesticide toxicity and exposure to inform risk decisions to protect children’s health from pesticides; and
6. Foster partnerships between academic researchers and the community in which information requested by the community and basic research deficiencies/gaps are translated into studies that address the needs of both.

Description:

The Center expects to produce the following results. First, the Center will identify mechanisms and susceptibility factors for adverse developmental neurotoxicity that may result for pesticide exposures. Moreover, the Center will improve our understanding of critical pathways of pesticide exposure for children and approaches to intervene to reduce children’s exposure and prevent potential health impacts from pesticides. Furthermore, the Center will provide core support for the development and application of risk assessment methods and foster partnerships between academic researchers and the community to address community needs and translation of Center research.

Potential Significance of this Research

Over the last decade, we have created an infrastructure that integrates data from diverse research studies and translates our findings into improved public health practices and child-protective policies and actions. The potential significance of our research stems from our integrated Center structure, track record, and momentum that allow us to put our projects into a child-specific risk assessment context so our scientific findings on pesticide toxicity and potential exposure can be translated to directly improve the risk assessment models we design, ensuring that we are protective of children’s health.

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Building on our 10-year history as a Center, we have designed a multi-disciplinary research program including members from multiple institutions, schools, departments, disciplines and communities to facilitate both basic and applied research aimed at identifying and reducing the influence of potential environmental exposures in children. This research program includes basic mechanistic studies of toxicity, exposure assessment, risk assessment, and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR).

We have used a public health biomarkers paradigm based on risk assessment in order to understand the relationship between potential exposures and hazards. Our projects include evaluation of age, seasonal, temporal, and gene-environment factors that define within- and between-person variability for potential organophosphate (OP) pesticide exposures and response.

The four research projects undertaken by the Center are closely linked by a common model. OPs will be examined in each project and researchers will share research results with one another through project-specific and Center-wide meetings. Two aspects of children's susceptibility to pesticides are addressed by the laboratory-based projects: the molecular mechanisms of neurotoxicity for OPs and the role of paraoxonase 1 (PON1) in defining sensitivity of mammals to OPs. The two field-based research projects seek to increase our understanding of potential exposure pathways and the amounts of OPs to which children may be exposed, a key risk assessment issue for children in agricultural communities. In the CBPR project we will work with community groups and individuals to examine the pathways of potential OP exposure among adult/child pairs within the Yakima Valley region of Washington State. The Pesticide Exposure Pathways Research Project is designed to understand the potential for pesticide spray drift in agricultural communities.

The Center facility cores provide cr

Cost :$5,417,075.00

Research Component :Children's Health

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