Grantee Research Project Results
Research Centers
Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Environmental Toxicants and Neuro-Developmental Impairment in Inner City Children is the unifying scientific theme of the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research. This Center resides within the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, in the Division of Environmental Health Science.
Children living in poverty in inner-city communities suffer some of the heaviest exposures to environmental toxicants in the United States. The goals of the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research are (1) to identify linkages between environmental toxicants and neuro-developmental dysfunction in inner-city children; (2) to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms by which environmental toxicants can cause developmental impairment; and (3) to prevent neuro-developmental dysfunction of environmental origin in urban children.
The research and prevention programs of the Center will focus on a range of neurodevelopmental toxicants encountered in the inner city: (1) pesticides-legal insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, and illegal "street" pesticides such as methyl Darathion. tres pasitos and tiza china; (2) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); and (3) lead. Patterns of exposure to these toxicants will be assessed. Adverse developmental outcomes will be examined through epidemiological studies and will include loss of intelligence, delayed attainment of developmental milestones, alteration of behavior and diminished life achievement; potential linkages of these problems to environmental exposures will be studied and etiologic mechanisms elucidated. New aDDroaches to prevention will be evaluated.
The Center includes five interdisciplinary research projects that link epidemiological and basic biological research at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and the New York Academy of Medicine's Center of Urban Epidemiologic Studies with the Boriken Neighborhood Health Center, with the East Harlem Community Health Committee and with an extensive network of community-based organizations in East Harlem.
View Projects in Tabular Format
Main Center Abstract and Reports:
Inner City Toxicants and Neurodevelopmental Impairment
Inner City Toxicants, Child Growth and Development
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.