U24 Abstract
The ongoing PROGRESS birth cohort is a collaborative study founded in 2007 by the Icahn School of Medicine
at Mount Sinai, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and the National Institute of Public
Health in Mexico. Over 16 years, PROGRESS has been supported by 20 NIH grants led by 15 different
researchers including 11 K awards. More than 30% of PROGRESS researchers identify as underrepresented
in medicine and science, demonstrating our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workforce—we are an
incubator for the next generation of environmental health scientists. In this proposal, we seek to expand our
understanding of the child and adolescent home exposome, because a large proportion of social and
chemical exposures occur in the home throughout the critical period of childhood. Combined with our extensive
collection of data characterizing the internal and chemical environments (e.g., air pollution, metal exposures),
our novel approaches to characterize the chemical and social home environment (bioethnographies, passive
sampling) will enable new research on the impact of these exposures on children’s health. Our longstanding
team includes expertise in exposure science, biostatistics, child health phenotyping, and cohort management;
here, we add new expertise in bioethnographic methods (Co-I E Roberts), public health economics (Co-I JL
Figueroa-Oropeza), and environmental sensors for community engagement (Collaborator R Toledo-Crow).
This proposal also funds our continued collection of standardized, validated measures to assess
neurodevelopmental, respiratory, and metabolic outcomes, enabling us to collaborate with other cohorts and
consortia focused on children’s environmental health. In recognition of the extraordinary range of skills of the
PROGRESS team, and to invest in the study’s long-term success by recognizing their talent and potential, the
former PI, Dr. Robert Wright, has transitioned leadership to MPIs Drs. Maria José Rosa, Megan Horton, and
Martha Maria Téllez-Rojo. Further, Dr. Wright will remain part of PROGRESS, providing access to his
organizational knowledge and cohort history. This transition enables the next generation of PROGRESS
researchers to build a modern, team-based cohort implementing programs to enhance participation and
retention, adapting to advances in social media, and assessing new life stage-based health outcomes and
exposures, as we prepare for future big data consortia research. This proposal links exposure scientists,
statisticians, social epidemiologists, anthropologists, economists, and pediatricians to create modern team-
based transdisciplinary science to follow PROGRESS children throughout the critical and understudied
adolescent period. Finally, this application offers the rare ability to link prenatal life to adolescent health
immediately, leveraging our high retention rates to extend cohort life stage coverage all the way to the
doorstep of adulthood. Thus, this U24 award is a unique opportunity that will ultimately inform interventions to
protect child health through adolescence, adulthood, and even further into the life course.
