Neurodevelopment and Environment: From Science to Dissemination and Translation

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Abstract This R13 application will support convening the fifth workshop for Project TENDR: “Targeting Environmental and NeuroDevelopment Risks.” Project TENDR is an alliance of leading children's environmental health scientists, health professionals, and children's health, environmental, and disabilities organizations united in their concern over toxic chemicals and pollutants that can harm children's brain development, and put children at higher risk for learning, developmental and intellectual disabilities. Project TENDR was co-founded in 2015 by Maureen Swanson, Learning Disabilities Association of America, and Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, The MIND Institute, University of California Davis. Its mission is to translate the science on chemicals and pollutants that harm brain development in order to foster community action and development of health-protective policies, with the goal to reduce developmental impairments and disorders, and to eliminate disproportionate exposures of children of color and children from low-income families or communities. To date, we have published four articles in peer-reviewed journals. The first was the TENDR Consensus Statement in Environmental Health Perspectives (Bennett et al 2016) which identified example chemical and pollutant exposures for which evidence supports their contribution to learning and developmental disabilities in children, and called for an overhaul of the regulatory system that has allowed continuing exposures to these and other neurotoxicants. The next three publications present recommendations for policies and practices that could reduce exposures to: lead (Bellinger et al., JAMA Pediatrics 2017), organophosphate pesticides (Hertz-Picciotto et al., PLos Medicine), and air pollution (Payne-Sturges et al., Am J Public Health). Other activities from TENDR have included speaking at professional conferences, Congressional briefings, and state legislative hearings. Additionally, individual members of TENDR have written or signed letters providing scientific information relevant to policies or regulations that are under discussion. The workshop will take place at the Waterfront Hotel in Oakland, CA, Oct 28-30, 2019. We expect attendance of approximately 45-50 TENDR members. The workshop focus is on two major aims: 1) to draft, revise, or finalize two or three manuscripts that are currently planned or already drafted; 2) to develop a science communication and dissemination plan to address upcoming policy issues for 2020. Specific topics for the manuscripts include: neurodevelopmental impacts arising from the environmental contributions to, and consequences of, climate change; phthalate exposures in relation to neurodevelopmental outcomes; and the disproportionate burden of environmental chemical and pollutant exposures in communities of color or low income, indigenous peoples, or immigrants in relation to health disparities in neurodevelopmental disorders.