# Child maltreatment and cardiovascular disease risk: examining psychosocial and immunological pathways in a prospective, longitudinal cohort

> **NIH NIH R01** · PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE · 2024 · $570,060

## Abstract

Child Maltreatment and Cardiovascular Disease Risk: Examining Psychosocial and Immunological Pathways in
 a Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort
PI: Hannah M. C. Schreier
PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Over one third of U.S. youth are investigated for child maltreatment (CM) before the age of 18. CM represents
an especially potent early life stressor with a profound impact on youth’s psychological and physical well-being.
Among other things, CM increases the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is responsible for 32% of
all deaths in the U.S. and the roots of which can already be found during childhood. Thus, a better
understanding of the physiological mechanisms through which CM is associated with increased CVD risk is
needed to improve the lifelong health trajectories of youth with a CM history, a high-risk yet understudied
group, as well as to better understand biological mechanisms connecting early life adversity to later life health
more generally. The proposed project will build on the currently ongoing Child Health Study (CHS; HD089922,
PI: Noll, Co-I: Schreier), as part of which 675 youth aged 8-13 years who were recently investigated for CM as
well as 225 comparison youth without a history of CM are being recruited and followed prospectively. Taking
advantage of this unique and exceptionally well-characterized cohort, we will augment the biopsychosocial
data already being collected to examine in-depth immune function outcomes. To this end, this project will
assess stimulated pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine production following in vitro microbial challenge,
sensitivity to glucocorticoid signaling among white blood cells, and, finally, latent virus regulation, all across
multiple timepoints. This will allow us to investigate prospectively and in detail the associations between
exposure to CM and immune function outcomes and will be the first study to do so in a sample of recently
maltreated youth. Additionally, we will be able to link the resulting immune function outcomes to early
indicators of CVD risk among these youth, both by linking to existing measures of cardiometabolic risk in the
cohort and further by linking to youth’s administrative records, specifically Medicaid claims data. This will be
the first study to examine connections between immune function outcomes and CVD-relevant health care use
among youth. Finally, we will be investigating the extent to which malleable protective factors, including youth
lifestyle, family and peer environments, may protect youth from the adverse effects of CM on altered immune
function outcomes and the extent to which key demographic moderators (age, pubertal stage, gender,
race/ethnicity, CM severity) play a role. The interdisciplinary research team includes expertise in the
assessment of immune function outcomes and CVD risk among vulnerable youth; the recruitment and
retention of prospective cohorts of CM survivors; and the use of administrative records to answer questions
pertaining to th...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10745307
- **Project number:** 5R01HL158577-03
- **Recipient organization:** PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
- **Principal Investigator:** Hannah Milena Caroline Schreier
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $570,060
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-01-15 → 2025-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10745307

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10745307, Child maltreatment and cardiovascular disease risk: examining psychosocial and immunological pathways in a prospective, longitudinal cohort (5R01HL158577-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10745307. Licensed CC0.

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