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ECHO Researchers Investigate Effects of Preterm Birth, Environmental Exposures on Child Health

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ECHO Researchers Investigate Effects of Preterm Birth, Environmental Exposures on Child Health

Authors: Michael O’Shea, Monica McGrath, Judy Aschner, Barry Lester, et al.

 

Who sponsored this study?

This research was supported by the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program, Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health.

 

What were the study results?

ECHO researchers are collecting extensive data from very preterm infants, including data on learning and intellectual impairments, asthma, obesity, sleep health, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article provides an overview of how data from ECHO cohorts are being used to address questions about the combined effects of preterm birth and environmental exposures on child health outcomes.

 

What was the study's impact?

Researchers can use the information in this review to enhance their knowledge of the ECHO Program’s resources to study preterm infants. Researchers can use ECHO data to investigate the relationship between preterm birth, environmental exposures, and childhood risk of chronic and developmental health conditions.

 

Why was this study needed?

Infants who are born premature (before 32 weeks of pregnancy) are at a high risk for multiple health disorders. This review paper outlines resources available within the ECHO Program for researchers seeking to study the effects of preterm birth and environmental exposures on child health outcomes.

 

Who was involved?

This review article includes ECHO cohorts that enrolled infants who were born premature. These cohorts enrolled almost 1,800 preterm infants across 14 states that were born between April 2002 and March 2020, including three ECHO cohorts that are almost exclusively comprised of preterm infants.

 

What happened during the study?

A team of experts reviewed the characteristics of the ECHO cohorts that are collecting data on preterm infants. Through this review, they sought to describe the research goals, participant selection criteria, key environmental exposures, and child health outcomes of each cohort.

 

What happens next?

ECHO researchers will continue to investigate early life factors and environmental exposures that may affect children’s health outcomes later in life. Researchers not participating in the ECHO Program will be able to obtain de-identified data from preterm children in the ECHO-wide Cohort, along with data from around 30,000 children born at term through a controlled-access public use database. This data will include information about a broad range of environmental exposures and outcomes related to chronic illness among children in the United States. Using this data, researchers can continue to build off of ECHO’s mission to enhance the health of children for generations to come.

 

Where can I learn more?

Access the full journal article, titled “Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes: Cohorts of Individuals Born Very Preterm,” in Pediatric Research.

 

The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Published August 10, 2022

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ECHO Researchers Investigate Effects of Preterm Birth, Environmental Exposures on Child Health

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Exploring Gaps in Factors that Affect Pre-Term Birth

Posted on by Jodi Snare

Although previous studies show the rates of pre-term birth (PTB) vary based on race and location, little is known about the origin of these differences. Therefore, ECHO researchers Anne Dunlop, MD, MPH, of Emory University, and Alicynne Glazier-Essalmi, of Michigan State University, sought to explore the link between the mother’s socioeconomic status (SES), race, location, and pre-term birth (PTB). Their research, titled “Racial and geographic variation in effects of maternal education and neighborhood-level measures of socioeconomic status on gestational age at birth: Findings from the ECHO cohorts,” is now published in PLoS One.

The participants involved in this study included women enrolled in the ECHO Program who delivered a baby, totaling more than 20,000 mother-infant pairs. These women provided all of the required information about themselves and their infant, including the mother’s age at delivery, education, physical address or region, alcohol use, prenatal care, and the child’s birth sex and gestational age. The research team then took this data and looked for patterns and connections between the given information and factors that affect PTB.

The study found race and ethnicity played a role in how early the child was born. Additionally, compared to non-Hispanic white women, women of all other races had a higher chance of PTB. “Education also played a role,” said Dunlop. “For women overall, a bachelor’s degree or above was linked to less chances of PTB, and a high school education or less led to higher chances of PTB.” This connection between education level and PTB was seen in women who lived in the South and Midwest regions of the United States. Lastly, non-Hispanic white women living in rural areas had a higher chance of PTB delivery compared to women living in urban areas.

“This study explored an important gap in the field of children’s health, as it gathered information on several factors that affect when and if a child is born prematurely,” said Glazier-Essalmi. “Given our findings on education, it is possible that higher education among women could decrease the chances of PTB in the county, especially in the South and Midwest regions.”

Because non-Hispanic Black women, Native American, and Alaskan Native women have the highest rates of PTB, future studies can help identify the causes for this difference and determine ways to prevent PTB in these populations.

Read the research summary here.