Exploring Pathways through which Structural Racism Impacts Children's Environmental Health

Project Summary/Abstract Structural racism and discrimination, which affects processes, policies and regulations that govern myriad systems, have been described as the root cause of social determinants of health and provide a framework for understanding child health disparities. Further, these structural factors affect life experiences and induce stress,

which leads to a cascade of changes in biologic function and physiological stress responses, including epigenetic processes. Hence, both upstream (within the societal or neighborhood realm) and downstream (within the individual or biological realm) factors coalesce to influence children’s health disparities, including disparities in

neurodevelopmental and respiratory health, which are both widespread, socially patterned, and largely unexplained by individual-level risk factors alone. Exposure to environmental toxicants (a downstream factor) has been implicated in children’s neurodevelopmental and respiratory health disparities. Thus, in Aim 1, we

propose to elucidate profiles of exposure to chemical mixtures during the prenatal and postnatal periods that impair neurodevelopmental trajectories and assess whether these effects are modified by maternal discriminatory experiences. In Aim 2, we propose a novel conceptualization of structural racism to capture

impacts across multiple domains and will evaluate the potential role of environmental toxicant exposures and epigenetic aging as mediators of the relation between structural racism and child neurodevelopment. In Aim 4, we will explore racial and ethnic differences in preconception exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and

children’s respiratory health outcomes. Our ECHO Cohort Study Site (Aim 3) will enhance the geographic and racial/ethnic heterogeneity of the ECHO Consortium with the recruitment of study participants from Houston, Texas, the fourth largest and most diverse city in the nation, and located in a region for which there is currently

very limited representation in ECHO. Houston is also characterized by no zoning and a large petrochemical complex, a busy seaport, heavily trafficked roadways, and numerous hazardous waste sites, which lead to complex exposure profiles. Hence, inclusion of participants from our Study Site will strengthen the ability of the

ECHO Cohort to address research questions related to children’s environmental health disparities. Our proposed research will be enhanced by a comprehensive Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) that leverages institutional infrastructure for diversity, equity, and inclusion and successful investigator development

programs funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and NIMHD/NIEHS/NICHD; will provide mentoring to team members who are at different career stages; and engage community partners, governmental officials and advocacy groups with whom we have trusting relationships to promote the ECHO

Program, obtain feedback on the conduct of studies to ensure diversity of ECHO cohort participants, and assist in translation and dissemination of results to maximize impact.