NICHD HUMAN BIOSPECIMEN REPOSITORY - RHODE ISLAND CHILDRENS HEALTH EQUITY AND DEVELOPMENT STUDY (ENRICHED) REPOSITORY

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Early life conditions including poverty and discrimination generate health disparities throughout life that become further entrenched in disadvantaged populations through transmission across generations. In the United States, these disparities manifest in differences in life expectancy and chronic disease and have their origins early in life; as early as the prenatal period. Adults of low socioeconomic status and particularly minorities experience disproportionately high rates of psychopathology, including depression, which bears well-documented associations with preterm delivery and other adverse obstetric outcomes. Parental mental health, which is strongly linked with social and economic disadvantage as well as differences in child development, may play a key mediating role in the transmission of disparities across generations but previous studies have not fully considered paternal as well as maternal psychopathology. As a result, though disparities in health are well documented, the developmental mechanisms that impact disparities at the very beginning of life are not, particularly those which lead to developmental deficits that emerge long before presentation of disease. The aims of the Rhode Island Children’s Health Equity and Development Study (ENRICHED) are to test the hypotheses that low socioeconomic and minority status results in higher risk of parental psychopathology, gestational neuroendocrine and metabolic dysregulation, and poor health-related behaviors in both parents and offspring. Biological samples will be collected from mothers throughout the duration of the study. Maternal blood samples will be used to measure a panel of neuroendocrine-immune and metabolic markers. These metabolites have been related to maternal risk of gestational diabetes, low birth weight, and rapid postnatal weight gain, suggesting that metabolite profiles of maternal samples pre-delivery are useful in characterizing maternal pregnancy metabolic status, and can predict infant neurodevelopmental phenotypes in early childhood. Blood will also be used to facilitate genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression analyses. Maternal urine will be used for assaying the concentration of environmental chemicals. Around the time of delivery, cord blood will also be collected and processed. Cord blood will be used to assess neuroendocrine-immune and metabolic markers and to facilitate genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression analyses. Biological fathers will contribute a single blood sample at the time of their in-person interview. Paternal blood will be used to facilitate genetic, epigenetic, and gene expression analyses. If fathers do not wish to allow blood collection, cheek swabs will be requested for salivary DNA analyses. Infants will have hair collected at both follow-up visits to assess cortisol as an indicator of HPA functioning / stress reactivity.