Impact/Purpose:

The primary objective of this study is to develop and demonstrate relevant, low cost, low burden monitoring strategies that can be used in a longitudinal epidemiological study that focuses on pregnant women and young children.

Description:

A birth cohort study designed to evaluate the association between exposures to environmental agents and health outcomes presents many challenges for exposure monitoring. Exposure of the child must be measured for multiple chemicals through multiply pathways over an extended period of time from conception through puberty. In order to be technically feasible, exposure monitoring methods must be relevant, low burden and low cost while maintaining acceptable precision and accuracy. In most exposure monitoring studies, substantial expense as well as participant burden is incurred simply by traveling to a participant's home and collecting the needed exposure data. Thus, validated strategies that minimize time spent in the field to collect the required exposure data are needed.

This study is designed to develop and demonstrate relevant, low cost, low burden monitoring strategies that could be used in longitudinal epidemiological/exposure studies, such as the National Children's Study. The focus of this study is on (1) recruiting and retaining participants (children and their caretakers) in a longitudinal exposure study and (2) demonstrating the feasibility of measurement strategies that use remote employment of readily available, easy to use, state-of-the-art methods, instruments, and/or techniques for assessing human exposures to environmental contaminants. The monitoring strategy involves mailing sampling kits to study participants with instructions for collecting biological samples (e.g., urine, breast milk, and hair) and environmental samples, such as water, house dust, surface wipes, and personal air samples (badges worn by participating children). After collection, participants package and ship the samples back to the laboratory. Participants also complete an on-line questionnaire that collects information on contaminant sources and participant activities at the time of sample collection. Results will be analyzed to determine participant compliance with sampling protocols, sample collection rates, survey response rates, participant retention rates, and information on how to reduce participant burden.

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT

Start Date:08/01/2000

Completion Date:09/01/2003

Record ID: 56201

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Project Information:

Progress :The research started in FY01 and included the following progress:

A task order was awarded to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to perform work under the task,

The quality system implementation plan (QSIP) was prepared and approved in July 2001,

A plan for the focus group meetings was submitted, revised, and approved,

A package was prepared for submission to the RTI Institutional Review Board (IRB) and approved,

The IRB package was submitted to the EPA and approved in October 2001,

The field demonstration studies were initiated in January 2002,

An abstract was prepared and a presentation was made describing the task at the ISEA 2001 conference,

Focus group meetings were held in June 2002,

Data collection (environmental, biological, and survey) continued throughout the period of January to December 2002,

The task order was amended to include limited chemical analyses of urine samples and VOC badges to assess compliance.

Relevance :This work directly supports the proposed interagency National Children's Study by developing low cost and burden monitoring strategies that will increase the feasibility of collecting good exposure data. Results of this work will be used by the Workgroup on Exposure to Chemical Agents from the National Children's Study (NCS) in developing the study design of the exposure measurements for the NCS. Results will be presented to the Workgroup and the NCS Assembly in interim and final reports. This research supports the science outlined in the Presidential Task Force. It also directly supports the high priority research outlined in ORD Sub-Objective # 8.2.1: Improve the scientific basis to identify, characterize, assess, and manage environmental exposures that pose the greatest health risks to the American public by developing models and methodologies to integrate information about exposures and effects from multiple pathways. Results of this work are expected to substantially improve the Agency's exposure assessments by facilitating less intrusive and burdensome monitoring strategies for studies to determine aggregate and cumulative exposure.

Clients :National Children's Study (NCS) Interagency Coordinating Committee (Peter Scheidt, Carole Kimmel, James Quackenboss), NCS Workgroup on Exposure to Chemical Agents (Robin Whyatt, Larry Needham, Haluk Ozkaynak)

Project IDs:

ID Code :8818

Project type :OMIS