Childhood & Environment

The ISGlobal Programme on Childhood & Environment focuses on evaluating the effects of environmental pollutants on children’s health, particularly following exposure during the intra utero and postnatal periods. Child health is considered a priority at the international level.

The main exposures analysed are:

• Air pollution
• Water pollution and chlorinated sub products
• Persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs, DDE, hexachlorobenzene, and perfluorinated compounds.
• Heavy metals such as mercury
• Endocrine disruptors such as bisphenol A and phthalates
• Indoor pollution
• Electromagnetic fields
• Nutrition

The Childhood & Environment programme has as main objective to evaluate the role of these exposures in intrauterine and postnatal development including:

• The maturation of the neurobehavioral system of children
• Obesity
• Cardiovascular health
• Respiratory health
• Puberty

Within the Childhood & Environment programme there is a strong focus on longitudinal birth cohort research. The INMA - Environment and Childhood Project, a Spanish network of birth cohorts, is a productive structured platform for etiological research on child health, growth and development. ISGlobal is also instrumental in the building of a network of birth cohorts in Europe as part of three European projects (ENRIECO, CHICOS, and LIFECYCLE), resulting in a framework for data sharing and harmonization across more than 30 European birth cohorts. Further, ISGlobal is a world-leader in neurodevelopment studies with special interest in the study of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders and autism spectrum disorders. The ERC advanced grant BREATHE, granted to Jordi Sunyer, aims to uncover the air pollution effects on ADHD and neurodevelopment, incorporating genetic and neuroimaging information. Recently, the programme has initiated work on the Exposome through the HELIX (Human Early Life Exposome) EC FP7 project (Martine Vrijheid) aiming to move towards a more holistic approach to studying co-existing exposures and their joint effects on child health.

Many other nationally and EC funded projects are related with the programme, including GERONIMO on electromagnetic fields, HBM4EU on human biomonitoring, EUTHYROID on thyroid function, APACHE and ESCAPE on air pollution, MEDALL on allergy and asthma, HiWATE on water contamination, PHENOTYPE on the built environment, and HiTEA on indoor air pollution.

BiSC is a prospective cohort study of pregnant women, their offspring and partners in an urban population designed to identify early environmental and genetic causes of normal and abnormal growth, development and health from foetal life until young adulthood. BIsc is the result of the union of two projects, AirNB and FRONTIER, funded by the European Research Council and the Health Effects institute, respectively.