E3Gen: Multigenerational Influences of Social Structure on Toxicant Exposures and Life Course Health in the ELEMENT Cohort

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E3Gen: Multigenerational influences of social structure on toxicant exposures and life course health in the ELEMENT cohort SUMMARY Traditional epidemiological research and methods often focus separately on how social, economic, and environmental factors affect individuals’ life course health, yet evolving research underscores the importance of considering the integrated effects of factors that cluster in those who are most socially disadvantaged. Multiple mechanistic pathways with complex linkages must also be taken into account to understand the effects of social structures and chemical exposures that underlie environmental health disparities. This challenge depends not only on the integration of measures of socioeconomic status into environmental cohort studies, but also qualitative and geographic information on neighborhood infrastructure and social conditions that can illuminate individuals’ lived experiences and facilitate new scientific directions. While substantial research examines the developmental origins and biologic mechanisms underlying toxicant-health associations, few cohorts have the ability to address the intergenerational legacy of toxicant exposures and social structures on life course health.1 This U24 competitive renewal application leverages the rich data and research infrastructure of the Early Life Exposure in Mexico to ENvironmental Toxicants (ELEMENT) cohort. Here, we propose expanding our E3Gen cohort maintenance activities to integrate novel measures of social structure and ethnographic data into our biologic and data repositories in this unique, multi-generational cohort of mother-child dyads followed for ~28 years. This expansion also will implement streamlined protocols to enhance follow-up and engage the original ELEMENT offspring as they transition to adulthood and begin to have children of their own, setting the stage for research examining the impact of social and environmental exposures on reproductive and metabolic health and development across 3 generations. Specific aims are to: 1) Create and collect household and individual qualitative and quantitative data to understand the direct effects of social and economic stressors and their potential to modify the multigenerational, life course effects of environmental exposures on health outcomes. 2) Encourage participation and prevent loss to follow up among ~600 ELEMENT offspring now aged 16-28 years and establish passive surveillance to recruit their children currently and projected to be born over the next 5 years. 3) Develop and test novel, nonlinear multidimensional methods to integrate and harmonize qualitative and quantitative data, foster cross-project data communication and novel interdisciplinary partnerships, and accelerate data sharing with the larger environmental health sciences community. Through our existing partnerships with minority-serving institutions Hampton and Fisk Universities and Spelman College, we will train diverse students in environmental epidemiology, global public health and biostatistics via summer undergraduate internships and accelerated master’s degree programs. 1 Gochfeld, Michael, and Joanna Burger. "Disproportionate exposures in environmental justice and other populations: the importance of outliers." American Journal of Public Health 101.S1 (2011): S53-S63.