Grantee Research Project Results
2024 Progress Report: INnovations to generate estimates of childrens soil/dust inTake (INGEST)
EPA Grant Number: R840200Title: INnovations to generate estimates of childrens soil/dust inTake (INGEST)
Investigators: Nachman, Keeve , Woodruff, Tracey J. , Davis, Meghan , Prasse, Carsten , Quirós-Alcalá, Lesliam , Voegtline, Kristin , Yuille, Alan
Institution: Johns Hopkins University , University of California - San Francisco
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: August 1, 2021 through June 30, 2024 (Extended to June 30, 2026)
Project Period Covered by this Report: August 1, 2023 through July 31,2024
Project Amount: $1,350,000
RFA: Estimating Childrens Soil and Dust Ingestion Rates for Exposure Science (2020) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Children's Health , Endocrine Disruptors , Human Health
Objective:
This project proposes an integrated and highly innovative portfolio of tools and approaches to assess dust and soil exposures for children ages six months to six years via macro-and micro-activity pattern and tracer studies. The objectives are to 1) longitudinally characterize lifestage and developmental milestone-specific macro-activity and microenvironmental patterns for children ages six months – six years; 2) prospectively collect and analyze in-home macro-activity video footage to describe the environmental and human factors that modify micro-activity patterns for children ages six – eighteen months; and 3) identify organic chemical fingerprints in three environmental and two biological samples using non-targeted analytical approaches to propose novel organic candidate tracer compounds and tracer mixtures for estimation of children’s soil and dust intake.
Progress Summary:
We have successfully completed recruitment and data collection for all three objectives as of July 31, 2024. For our first Objective, we enrolled between 113 and 162 caregivers to complete smartphone surveys in each of the 4 seasons. We are pleased to have exceeded our goals in some seasons and are confident our data will be informative for understanding the activities and behaviors of children between 6 months and 6 years in pursuit of improving characterization of soil and dust exposure. Given the complex structure of our time-activity data, we have engaged a biostatistician to assist with analysis. We are actively analyzing the smartphone survey data and preparing manuscripts. For Objective 2, we conducted 61 home visits to collect videos of children playing and eating food. We are refining the computer vision method that determines pose of the child and counts microactivities, with a focus on hand-to-mouth and object-to-mouth behaviors. We completed our human behavioral coding on a subset (~35, or more than half) of our videos. This subset of videos will validate and ground-truth the computer vision algorithm and the quantitative outputs (e.g., distribution of microactivities) from the computer vision algorithm. We made significant progress towards the development of our approach for identifying novel organic tracers (Objective 3). Our approach to this objective involves the collection and non-target analysis of biological (urine and stool) and environmental (indoor dust, outdoor dust, soil, infant formula, and solid food) samples. We have completed our goal of 30 successful home visits and have processed and archived all samples accordingly. We are currently analyzing each environmental and biological media and will proceed with the established workflow for data processing and identification of novel organic tracers.
The goals of the project have not changed from the original application, and that no delays have occurred that will materially impair our ability to meet the results specified in the application.
Future Activities:
Immediate-term activities include analyses of and samples and data for all three objectives. Concurrently, we will conduct exploratory/initial data analyses to assess progress, and further develop the computer vision methodology for microactivity assessment to include consideration of pacifier/comfort object use and “re-wetting” behaviors. We will continue to process the results of our multi-media non-target analytical data to begin consideration of candidates for tracer development.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
| Other project views: | All 7 publications | 2 publications in selected types | All 2 journal articles |
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Chatpar EA, Habib I, Rosman L, Nachman KE, Lupolt SN. Collection of time activity data to support exposure assessment:Protocol for a systematic evidence map. Evidence-Based Toxicology 2024;2(1):2338702. |
R840200 (2024) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
sensitive populations; human health; survey; measurement methods; observationRelevant Websites:
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.