Michigan researchers receive $26 million NIH grant to check environmental impacts on child health

Backed by a $26 million federal grant, researchers at three Michigan universities, a number one health care system, and a state agency will proceed a long-term study of how exposure to environmental aspects while pregnant and early childhood can impact health for a lifetime.

The funding from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is for the second phase of a national research program called ECHO, which stands for the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes, and features a sample of moms, infants and youngsters from across america. The primary phase began in 2016.

This award shows the research potential we’ve got across the state. The partnership brings together a few of the best research minds of our state. It’s definitely greater than the sum of its parts.”

Jean Kerver, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics on the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and lead principal investigator for the Michigan-based a part of ECHO

Along with MSU, the partners include the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

ECHO just isn’t a single study but encompasses many research projects all around the country with the goal of improving the health of youngsters as they grow into adults and for generations to come back. The collaborative alliance of scientists in Michigan is named Child Health Advances from Research with Moms, or CHARM. The goal of CHARM is to enhance the health of moms and youngsters in Michigan.

The investigators study the health effects of a broad range of environmental exposures that occur while pregnant and early childhood. That features air pollution, chemical exposures and inadequate nutrition, in addition to societal aspects, equivalent to stress and poverty.

Among the child health outcomes studied include preterm birth, brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders, asthma and obesity.

Nationally, ECHO has collected data from 105,000 participants, including greater than 64,000 children. In Michigan, the cohorts include more than1,500 pairs of moms and their children enrolled through 11 hospitals and 21 prenatal clinics across the state. On this second phase, researchers plan to enroll 500 more pairs of moms and youngsters from the Detroit, Flint and Traverse City areas, Kerver said.

Kerver credited her predecessor because the lead principal investigator, Nigel Paneth, with forming the statewide partnerships. Although retired from a full-time faculty position, Paneth, an emeritus University Distinguished Professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and pediatrics and human development on the MSU College of Human Medicine, stays energetic within the ECHO program and other research.

Charles Barone, a pediatrician at Henry Ford Health, has been key in maintaining clinical and stakeholder relationships.

“It’s each necessary and gratifying to receive such a powerful commitment from the NIH in support of our affiliated Michigan institutions continuing to construct upon the success of the ECHO program for a further seven years,” said Barone. “This research helps us to raised understand how environmental aspects affect child health from birth through adolescence, and what could be done to mitigate and improve their health outcomes for generations to come back.”

Michael Elliott, professor of biostatistics at U-M, developed the hospital and prenatal clinic sampling plan that ensures results are representative of all births within the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. 

“This latest grant will allow us to proceed following our representative sample of Michigan births through infancy and childhood to assess how prenatal aspects affect child health, pointing to ways to enhance child health from birth on,” Elliott said. “We may even leverage the relationships we developed at sampled hospitals in Detroit, Flint and Traverse City to proceed recruiting moms and babies in minority, low-income and rural communities, all areas at greater risk of poor child health. My work and the work of other researchers on the University of Michigan might be integral to those efforts.”

Douglas Ruden, a professor and director of epigenomics at Wayne State University’s Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, is joined by experts in immunology and toxicologists who study environmental exposures to each the mother and father.

“The second Michigan ECHO grant is an amazing opportunity to know how a mother’s exposure to environmental chemicals and stressors affects the health of her children,” said Ruden. “This necessary alliance will impact the health of many across the U.S., now and into the long run.”

Kerver said she was excited when she learned that the NIH approved funding for the Michigan partners within the ECHO program. Among the findings, she said, could immediately lead to raised health for Michigan residents.

“It absolutely should,” she said. “What we hope to do is solve health problems people in Michigan and across the U.S. have straight away. That’s the primary thing. That is what we’re all working for.”