# Exploring Multiple Environmental Exposures in Combination as Risk Factors for Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

> **NIH NIH F32** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $40,578

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Pregnant women and their developing fetuses are particularly vulnerable, making life-course
research, particularly regarding environmental exposures, highly important. However, traditional
research of environmental exposures during gestation focused on one exposure at a time with
limited results. Recently, the concept of the “exposome,” or the measurement of the totality of
one’s exposures has emerged, emphasizing the importance of considering as many of one’s
exposures as possible. The exposome consists of three domains: the internal, specific external,
and general external. The internal comprises the “omics” technologies while the specific
external comprises exposures such as environmental contaminants and the general external
comprises social factors and stress. In this project, I endeavor to combine multiple measures of
the specific external environment, specifically pesticides and air pollution, with aspects of the
general external environment such as measures of socioeconomic status, along with measures
of greenspace, during the prenatal period. I will investigate the association of this complex
combination of exposures with the adverse pregnancy outcomes, preeclampsia and structural
birth defects. Preeclampsia is a condition affecting 5% of pregnant women in the United States
and is a major cause of maternal and neonatal mortality and other adverse birth outcomes. In
previous work, we also observed an association between preeclampsia and selected structural
birth defects. Birth defects affect roughly 3% of births in the United States and are the top cause
of infant death. Etiologies of both preeclampsia and birth defects remain mostly unknown and
research regarding environmental risk factors of both is limited. Thus, I will utilize the rich data
available in a large birth cohort from the San Joaquin Valley in California, a region of one of the
highest agricultural pesticide use areas and high air pollutant levels in the US, to investigate the
association between this combination of environmental exposures with preeclampsia and the
joint outcome of preeclampsia and birth defects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10266746
- **Project number:** 5F32HD096754-03
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Kari Ann Weber
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $40,578
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-30 → 2021-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10266746

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10266746, Exploring Multiple Environmental Exposures in Combination as Risk Factors for Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes (5F32HD096754-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10266746. Licensed CC0.

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