Message from Matt

A message from the ECHO Director, Matthew W. Gillman, MD

Around this time each year, I find myself reflecting on where the ECHO Program was a year ago, where we have gone, and where we are heading. For all of us, 2020 has looked wildly different from all previous years of our lives, and it has come with many challenges. I feel a sense of pride, however, for the way our ECHO teams have stepped up, adapted, and overcome COVID-19-related barriers to continue our important work to enhance the health of children for generations to come.

During this past year, the ECHO Program team publicly launched our ECHO Discovery Series and the ECHO Connector and mapped out a plan for this 5^th year of the program to ensure we continue down a successful road toward meeting our mission.  Our investigators continue their research, both on the observational and intervention fronts, and there are many research results in the pipeline for publication during this coming year.

As we enter Year 5 of ECHO, our plan outlines goals and objectives to foster a collaborative environment so that our investigators can publish important research that will inform healthcare practices, new health programs in our communities, and health policies. In addition to the goals set forth by the ECHO Components, the NIH ECHO Program Office has created a strategic plan that will help steer the program in the right direction. You may read more about this plan below.

2020 has also seen increased engagement with our stakeholder organizations.  I hope that you are enjoying receiving these updates on the ECHO Program, and we look forward to sharing many more in the New Year. We hope you have a wonderful and safe end of the year, and we will be back with the first ECHO Connector of 2021 in January.

—Matthew W. Gillman, M.D., S.M.

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Featured Publication

Literature Review Finds Connection Between Chemical Exposure and Time to Pregnancy

ECHO researcher Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH, of NYU Langone Health and her research team recently published a literature review in Human Reproduction Update that compared the results of past studies on human-made chemicals and their impact on pregnancy. They found a connection between certain chemicals and time to pregnancy, and also identified chemicals that need further research.

Read more here

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News You Can Use

ECHO NIH Program Office Creates Strategic Plan for Year 5

The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program is an extramurally funded program maintained within the Office of the Director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The ECHO Program, currently in its fifth year of funding, has developed a strategic plan to assess the program’s overall direction and to focus its priorities. This strategic plan articulates the mission and vision of the Program Office and will be its roadmap for success over the next five years.

The purpose of this strategic plan is to guide the ECHO Program Office to implement a strategic direction for the next phase of its work, which facilitates a landscape assessment; opportunities to assess staff roles and re-prioritize activities; development of program office strategic goals, objectives, and key measures of success; and information gathering and analysis for continuous improvement.

You can find the full strategic plan here.

ECHO researchers explore validity of shortened social communication questionnaire

Are short questionnaires as valid as longer versions when identifying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other social communication behaviors?

ECHO researchers Kristen Lyall, ScD, Craig Newschaffer, PhD, and others hoped to answer this question in their research titled, "Distributional properties and criterion validity of a shortened version of the Social Responsiveness Scale: Results from the ECHO program and implications for social communication research." This publication, featured in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, examines how well a shortened version of a social communication questionnaire identified behaviors related to ASD and social communication compared to the longer, established version.

More than 3,000 parents from across the United States participated in this study, nearly 200 of which had a child with ASD.

In all, the team found that the short form did well predicting ASD diagnosis and measuring social communication behaviors. These results suggest that shorter surveys can provide correct information about ASD, and at the same time would be quicker and easier for the participant to complete. However, more research is needed to see how the short questionnaire compares in other ways to the longer version.

This work is especially important because it may help address the needs of people who do not have autism but face challenges in social communication and could benefit from help. Additionally, it may help reduce the time it takes to complete surveys while still accurately capturing and addressing social communication challenges in those with and without ASD.

For more information, read the study summary.

November 26 is National Family History Day

One thing we all know Thanksgiving for is a time for families to reconnect and come together. However, did you know it is also an opportunity to connect with family on health and wellness in celebration of National Family History Day? Understanding family history and its effects on child health is a large part of the ECHO Program.

Over half of ECHO cohorts and studies are focused on prenatal health, part of the pre-, peri- and postnatal outcome area of health in ECHO research. The prenatal stage of development is when a child will inherit genes that will ultimately determine their genetic health expressed throughout their lifetime. Genes can determine how a child will look, but also what health conditions they may develop. The prenatal and perinatal stages of pregnancy are also a time when a mother’s environmental factors may affect the child. Understanding how environmental and genetic aspects of family health history may affect the health of children is key to the mission of the ECHO Program to enhance the health of children for generations to come.

Family History Day comes at a great time for the ECHO Program, as our ECHO Discovery presentation this month focused on how family constellations can inform science. Learn more about this session here.

ECHO is committed to helping the public understand how varying factors can affect child health. Some of the ways we do this are through our cohort studies, our ECHO Discovery Series, and by bringing attention to important health awareness days like Family History Day.  Learn more about Family Health History Day here.

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Upcoming Events for You to Join

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Did You Know

• October 5 was National Child Health Day. The ECHO Program strives to enhance the health of children for generations to come and we are excited to see that others share these values!
• October 15 was Global Handwashing Day. This year, even more than usual, good hand hygiene is extremely important. Let’s keep the effort of Global Handwashing Day going, and encourage our friends and families to do so as well!
• October Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month. Pre/peri/postnatal outcomes are one of ECHO’s five areas of health outcomes and we send our heartfelt condolences to those who have suffered a loss.

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