Multiple Risk Factors and Neurodevelopment Deficits in Rural Appalachian Children

描述（由申请人提供）：尽管农村儿童之间的健康差异被广泛记录，但阿巴拉契亚美国农村儿童承受着已知归因于这些健康差异的心理、社会经济和环境因素的过度负担。阿巴拉契亚社区儿童的父母报告说，与全国父母报告相比，他们的孩子的行为问题更普遍。此外，阿巴拉契亚社区暴露在已知会导致神经发育缺陷的环境有毒物质中。社会心理和环境对儿童神经发育的影响关系尚不清楚。因此，我们假设暴露于空气中神经毒物与包括认知、注意力、记忆、神经运动功能在内的神经行为缺陷有关，并且这种联系受到社会经济条件、养育环境和其他因素的影响。为了检验这一假设，将实现以下具体目标：具体目标1：评估儿童接触环境的总体背景，包括社会经济、家庭、营养和其他因素，以便审查农村服务不足社区环境健康的动态过程。具体目标2：使用一系列经过验证的评估，确定暴露于空气中神经毒物的儿童是否有增加的神经发育缺陷风险。我们的项目是一个新颖的、以社区为基础的参与性研究项目，将首次利用敏感的生物学和生物学方法评估被认为影响阿巴拉契亚儿童健康的多种风险因素

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although health disparities among rural children are widely documented, rural Appalachian American children bear an undue burden of psychological, socioeconomic, and environmental factors known to attribute to these health disparities. Parents of children in Appalachian communities report a greater prevalence of behavioral problems in their children of as compared to national parental reports. Moreover, Appalachian communities are exposed to environmental toxicants known to cause deficits in neurodevelopment. The relationship among psychosocial and environmental influences on children's neurodevelopment remains unclear. Thus, we hypothesize that exposure to airborne neurotoxicants are associated with neurobehavioral deficits including measures of cognition, attention, memory, neuromotor function in an underserved Appalachian American pediatric population and this association is modified by socioeconomic conditions, rearing environment, and other factors. In order to test the hypothesis, the following specific aims will be accomplished: Specific Aim 1: Assess the overall context in which childhood environmental exposure occurs, including socioeconomic, familial, nutrition, and other factors, in order to examine the dynamic process of environmental health in rural underserved communities. Specific Aim 2: Determine if children exposed to airborne neurotoxicants are at increased risk for deficits in neurodevelopment using a battery of well-validated assessments. Our project is a novel, community-based participatory research project that will for the first time evaluate multiple risk factors believed to influence Appalachian child health using sensitive biological and behavioral markers. Ultimately, this project will lead to the identification of the key multiple rik exposures for targeted public health interventions for rural, underserved Appalachian Americans. Given the unique susceptibility of children to neurotoxicant exposure in combination with psychosocial factors, we anticipate the results of this study to have a major impact on the community, national policy, and regulatory changes and broad implications for addressing health disparities in Appalachian Americans.