Grantee Research Project Results
Connecting Early Life Chemical Stressors and Caregiving Environment to Neurodevelopmental Outcomes for Children Attending Licensed Child Care Centers
EPA Grant Number: R840221Title: Connecting Early Life Chemical Stressors and Caregiving Environment to Neurodevelopmental Outcomes for Children Attending Licensed Child Care Centers
Investigators: Redmon, Jennifer Hoponick , Willoughby, Michael , Levine, Keith , Kondash, AJ , Aceituno, Anna , Pilkington, William , Kumar, Deepak
Current Investigators: Redmon, Jennifer Hoponick , Levine, Keith , Willoughby, Michael , Kondash, AJ , Pilkington, William , Kumar, Deepak , Colley, Sarah
Institution: Research Triangle Institute
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: August 1, 2021 through July 31, 2025
Project Amount: $1,899,906
RFA: Center for Early Lifestage Vulnerabilities to Environmental Stressors (2020) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Children's Health
Objective:
The overarching objective of this Center is to make causal linkages between cumulative environmental exposures, caregiving environments in early childhood, and changes in neurodevelopment for preschoolers.
Project 1: The objective of Project 1 is to identify the occurrence, concentration, and variation of chemicals found in toddler’s caregiving environments at home and in child care, and evaluate how the cumulative chemical exposures are causally associated with neurodevelopmental functioning in early childhood. This project addresses the solicitation directive: Characterize cumulative prenatal and/or perinatal exposures to chemicals and potential consequential age-group-specific health effects.
Project 2: The objective of Project 2 is to test whether nonchemical factors, specifically home caregiving environment, alter the impacts of early life chemical exposures (i.e., metals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and cotinine as a biomarker of tobacco exposure) on neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood. This project addresses the solicitation directive: Identify and explain the relationship between perinatal environmental chemical exposures and other factors (socio, cultural, and environmental) that would impact risk assessment.
Approach:
Our experimental approach is to recruit and enroll toddlers attending licensed child care centers into the study and complete environmental exposure analyses at both the home and child care center, along with neurodevelopmental and caregiving environment evaluations. We will consider multiple exposure media (e.g., drinking water, household dust) and contaminant types (e.g., metals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and cotinine as a biomarker of tobacco exposure) and use noninvasive sampling techniques (e.g., environmental sample collection, personal exposure monitor wristbands, and saliva/hair collection). We will leverage objective, performance-based measures of children’s cognitive function and behavior ratings to index neurodevelopmental functioning to causally relate them to chemical exposure. We will also consider caregiving environment as a nonchemical stressor (e.g., parental behavior and household stress) that may influence the magnitude of the association between chemical exposures and neurodevelopmental outcomes. We will use a short-term prospective longitudinal design to apply innovative statistical methods that support causal inferences. We will conduct a systematic investigation of how racial and economic inequities may affect chemical exposures and nonchemical stressors that lead to variation in neurodevelopmental outcomes using a stratified sampling approach that oversamples children of color in underserved communities.
Project 1:Our experimental approach has five steps. First, we will recruit 300 families who send their 12- to 24-month-old children to center-based preschools in central North Carolina, leveraging connections to child care centers from our current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency–supported Clean Water for Carolina Kids program grant. We aim to oversample children of color (at least 35%subsample) and recruit children from preschools in Housing and Urban Development opportunity zones. Second, we will collect and analyze environmental and biological samples at homes and preschools, including water samples for metals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); dust, saliva, and hair samples for metals analyses and urinalysis for cotinine exposure; and the use of personal exposure wristbands to evaluate polybrominated diphenyl ethers and total organic fluorine as a novel personal exposure indicator for PFAS. Third, we will conduct cognitive and behavioral assessments to evaluate child neurodevelopmental outcomes when children are 24 and 36 months old during home and preschool visits, respectively. Fourth, we will use questionnaire data on child behaviors, along with publicly available community socioeconomic data (e.g., census tract poverty rates, North Carolina state blood bank for lead testing) to consider community and family factors. Fifth, we will use innovative statistical methods (i.e., instrumental variable and inverse probability of treatment weighting models) to test potential causal associations between chemical exposures and neurodevelopmental outcomes. We will also conduct sensitivity analyses to determine whether the impacts of chemical exposures on neurodevelopmental outcomes differ as a function of race, place (urban vs. rural counties), or child sex.
Project 2: Our approach is informed by a multilevel model of development and leverages novel interpersonal (i.e., observational measures of parent–child interaction quality) and intrapersonal (i.e., parent self-reports of stress, mental health functioning, and perceived social support) risk and protective factors that will be obtained from the 24-month home visit conducted in Project 1. We will test whether the magnitude of the impacts of early life chemical exposures on neurodevelopmental functioning vary as a function of nonchemical risk and protective factors. Specifically, we hypothesize that although protective factors (e.g., sensitive and cognitively stimulating caregiving behaviors, social support) will mitigate the impacts of chemical exposures on neurodevelopment, risk factors (e.g., harsh and intrusive caregiving, parental and economic stress) will compound the negative impacts of chemical exposures on neurodevelopment. A multiple moderation model will be estimated to accommodate the correlated nature of nonchemical stressors. Here, we will pay particular attention to demographic and socioeconomic confounders that co-occur with chemical exposures and our focal risk and protective factors. We will also conduct sensitivity analyses to evaluate the robustness of moderated effects as a function of race, place, and child sex.
Expected Results:
We hypothesize that toddlers with greater environmental exposures will display reduced neurodevelopmental progress over time. Additionally, we hypothesize that children in a more supportive and stable caregiving environment will show greater progression in neurodevelopmental functioning than children in less ideal caregiving environments. The expected outputs include a characterization of chemical risks to neurobehavioral development and of the impacts of nonchemical stressors on mitigating or exacerbating neurobehavioral development. Our Center addresses the solicitation’s research needs by focusing on various factors that affect child neurodevelopment across a child’s caregiving environment and exposome, especially for underserved populations and children of color that attend child care. The expected outcomes include both novel contributions to scientific literature and actionable information for communities, caregivers, and researchers that help protect child neurodevelopment.
Project 1: Project 1’s expected outputs include scientific stature related to the impact and magnitude of early life chemical exposures on emerging neurodevelopmental competencies in toddler- and early childhood. Expected Project 1 outcomes include creating better informed public health guidance at the local, state, and federal levels, along with more practical health-based decision-making guidance for parents and child care administrators to prevent or mitigate chemical exposures for vulnerable children during a sensitive period for neurodevelopment.
Project 2: The expected outputs of Project 2 are to identify which children are most vulnerable to the impacts of chemical exposure on neurodevelopment and to identify novel and actionable strategies that involve intervening on nonchemical factors to support vulnerable families and children. Our expected outcomes include scientific stature characterizing whether nonchemical factors modify the impact of chemical exposures on child neurodevelopment, a policy brief, individual participant reporting, conference presentations, and insightful yet practical findings to use for the Translation Core community engagement.
Supplemental Keywords:
Lead, metals, PFAS, PDBE, environmental exposure, self-regulation, attention, executive function, ADHD, toddlerhood, early childhood, parent–child interaction, parenting stress, economic stress, moderation, conditional effects, silicone wristbands, inverse probability of treatment weightingProgress and Final Reports:
The 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.