# Atlanta ECHO Pediatric Cohort:  Examining -omics pathways from prenatal exposures to child neurodevelopment

> **NIH NIH UG3** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $1,012,297

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Black Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities experience higher levels of psychosocial stress and are
exposed to unique stressors, such as discrimination and structural racism. Prenatal psychosocial stress
increases risk for a range of adverse maternal, perinatal and child neurodevelopmental outcomes. However,
nationally representative samples with prospective data on maternal report of prenatal stress and
discrimination and verified perinatal and child health outcomes are lacking, as are investigations that consider
risk and protective pathways that reflect solution-oriented research. The ECHO Cohort is ideal for advancing
solution-oriented science around maternal psychosocial stress exposures, perinatal risk pathways, and child
health outcomes as the protocol includes measures of prenatal stress and experiences of discrimination, social
support and cohesion, prenatal health behaviors (diet, physical activity, sleep, substance use), pregnancy
complications and birth outcomes, and child health outcomes for a socio-demographically heterogenous,
national sample. Geocoding efforts also enable the consideration of area level measures of structural racism,
allowing for multi-level, multi-domain analyses in line with the NIMHD research framework for investigating
health disparities. We seek to extend follow-up of our Atlanta ECHO Cohort participants under the ECHO
Protocol and to participate in solution-oriented team science. Enrolled children are now 2 to 7 years old and will
be followed with annual visits consistent with the ECHO Protocol, with a focus on child neurodevelopment as a
specialized outcome area. The unique contributions of our Cohort Study site include our capacity to follow
hard-to-reach racial and ethnic minority families (as our cohort is wholly composed of Black American families,
75% of whom are of lower socioeconomic status); our geographic location in a major metropolitan area in the
US Southeast that experiences unique regional and area-level stressors (e.g., racialized segregation); and our
multi-disciplinary team of psychosocial, clinical, and omic investigators with expertise in (personalized)
exposure assessment, maternal stress, perinatal and birth outcomes, and child neurodevelopment. Given our
team’s expertise, and preliminary data that supports an association between stress, omics pathways, and
neurodevelopment, we plan to lead test novel hypotheses about how prenatal stress (including racial
discrimination) leads to perturbations in the metabolome, epigenome and microbiome, and how these
biological perturbations, in turn, predict child neurodevelopment. We will also test the role of racial
discrimination experiences in children’s health outcomes in the ECHO cohort, as well as modifiable mediators
(maternal prenatal sleep quality and postpartum depression) and moderators (social support) which will inform
potential intervention strategies designed to improve children’s health outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10744941
- **Project number:** 2UG3OD023318-08
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** PATRICIA A BRENNAN
- **Activity code:** UG3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $1,012,297
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2016-09-21 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10744941

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10744941, Atlanta ECHO Pediatric Cohort:  Examining -omics pathways from prenatal exposures to child neurodevelopment (2UG3OD023318-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10744941. Licensed CC0.

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