In a recent article published in Environmental Research, ECHO researcher Heather Volk, PhD, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and her team summarized information on different ways to measure prenatal air pollution exposure. They also reviewed what scientists know about how air pollution affects children’s behavior and brain development.

To collect this information, the team reviewed previous publications on air pollution and child development and summarized the study results. They then took these findings and developed a plan to address shortcomings of the earlier work to advance children’s health.

The plan involves using advanced geographic models for common air pollutant exposures. Since more than 90% of ECHO cohorts have collected a physical address for their participants, ECHO has the ability to study pollutant exposures by geographic area. This has been a limitation commonly seen in this area of research. This summary data also allows researchers to determine if there may be enough ECHO participants in the future to study how air pollution can affect children’s brain development and behavior.

“This research confirms that ECHO provides a unique opportunity to study how air pollution can affect children’s brain development and behavior in a large, diverse study population,” Volk said. Given this information, the team hopes that future studies will examine prenatal air pollution exposure in ECHO participants to examine how it affects the brain.