Julie Herbstman: Understanding Changes in Environmental Exposures Over Time in ECHO and Impacts on Children’s Health

Discovery Summary

Key Takeaways:

• Longitudinal studies, like those at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH), can look at exposures over time, which can be used to identify new research areas, inform new policies aimed at reducing these exposures, and help assess the effectiveness of those policy changes.
• There are many opportunities within ECHO research to examine ongoing trends in environmental exposures that can inform programs, practices, and policies aimed at reducing exposures.
• Because participants in ECHO have been recruited over time and across a large geographic area, researchers can leverage ECHO’s robust data to understand the potential impact of current and future policies and interventions on children’s health outcomes.

Speaker:

Julie Herbstman, PhD, ScM

Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH)

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Herbstman is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH). Beginning 1998, the CCCEH is the home to three longitudinal birth cohort studies of children born in New York City, with the goal of understanding the impacts of early life urban environmental chemical and social exposures on child health. As an environmental and molecular epidemiologist, Dr. Herbstman studies the pathways between these urban exposures and health outcomes, with a particular focus on neurodevelopment. She also focuses on research translation, ensuring that the scientific gains are effectively communicated to and shared with both policymakers and communities.

Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 1 to 2pm ET