# Early Life Exposures and Child Trajectories: Growth and Respiratory Health

> **NIH NIH UH3** · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH · 2021 · $2,612,275

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Early exposures in critical developmental windows around fertilization, implantation, and during pregnancy can
have long-term impact on health, development, and disease in children. A comprehensive assessment of early
exposures requires a multidimensional assessment of the exposome, including community-level environmental
factors (including air pollution), chemical exposures (including endocrine disruptors), the microbiome (including
commensals and infectious agents with associated immune responses), and the genome and its responses to
the environment (including the inherited epigenome, genomic expression, and the proteome). We are currently
re-enrolling a pediatric cohort from two birth cohorts enrolled peri-conceptionally/prenatally, 1) the Utah
participants in the National Children’s Study, and 2) participants in the Home Observation of Peri-conceptional
Exposures (HOPE) study, into the Early Life Exposures and Child Trajectories (ELECT) cohort. We are also
enrolling biological parents and up to one biological sibling child. In the UG3 phase (the first two years), we
focus on completing re-enrollment of the entire cohort, and also on innovative methods for assessment of a
spectrum of known and emerging exposures during the key early windows of the peri-conceptional time and
early pregnancy. Exposures we assess will include the microbiome, medications, infections, pan-viral antibody
assessment, air pollutants (especially particulate pollution (PM2.5), also nitrogen oxides and ozone), endocrine
disrupting chemicals (particularly bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates), and hypomineralization of dental enamel
as a marker for early endocrine disrupting exposure. We will also conduct a preliminary assessment of some
health impacts. In UH3 phase, we will focus on the association of these exposures with subsequent outcomes
in two focus areas: growth (including insulin resistance and childhood obesity) and respiratory health (including
respiratory infections and asthma). We will work completely collaboratively with the ECHO national synthetic
cohort to integrate UCP-ELECT into that cohort. We will contribute to the design of the core measures for the
synthetic ECHO cohort and implement these within UCP-ELECT. Taken together, this proposal focuses
throughout both UG3 and UH3 on novel assessments for exposures that can be translated to other settings of
the ECHO synthetic cohort in a feasible and cost-effective manner. We are focused particularly on
assessments that can be applied retrospectively in other cohorts to assess very early exposures (peri-
conception and early pregnancy). Thus, we will contribute to the ECHO cohort 1) a population-based, pediatric
cohort (950 children from 500 families) with extant and new early biospecimens and assessments, and 2)
scientific validation of critical multidimensional exposome measurements from preconception through gestation
and early childhood. These methods will then be available to asses...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10238784
- **Project number:** 5UH3OD023249-06
- **Recipient organization:** UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
- **Principal Investigator:** Angelo Peter Giardino
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $2,612,275
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-21 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10238784

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10238784, Early Life Exposures and Child Trajectories: Growth and Respiratory Health (5UH3OD023249-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10238784. Licensed CC0.

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