Prenatal and early-life black carbon exposure and childhood cardiometabolic health - PROJECT SUMMARY
Child obesity is a major public health challenge. Exposure to environmental chemicals early in life may lead to
increased risk for obesity and cardiometabolic health disruption in childhood. Black carbon is a traffic-related
air pollutant that is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and early mortality in adults. Very few
previous epidemiologic studies have investigated black carbon exposure during early life and childhood obesity
and growth outcomes. Accordingly, black carbon remains an understudied, yet widespread exposure with a
biologically plausible link to disrupted cardiometabolic homeostasis. We will leverage existing data from the
Healthy Start study, a pre-birth cohort of 1,410 pregnant women enrolled 2009-2014 and their offspring
followed through age 8 years in the Denver-metropolitan area. Healthy Start has extensively phenotyped
participants on biological and anthropometric measures of childhood cardiometabolic health, including precise
body composition measures using state-of-the-art air displacement plethysmography, longitudinal measures of
body mass index (BMI), and blood biomarkers of metabolic homeostasis including fasting glucose, insulin,
lipids, and adipokines. The specific aims are: 1) to estimate associations between prenatal and childhood
exposure to black carbon and indicators of adiposity at 4-6 years, 2) to estimate associations between prenatal
and childhood exposure to black carbon and offspring cardiometabolic biomarkers at 4-6 years, and 3) to
estimate longitudinal associations of prenatal and childhood exposure to black carbon with BMI growth
trajectories from 2-8 years. We hypothesize that early-life exposure to black carbon will result in higher risk of
adverse cardiometabolic outcomes in children. The results will advance understanding of the impact of black
carbon, a specific traffic-related air pollutant, on childhood adiposity and cardiometabolic health. The findings
will provide essential information to environmental policy makers responsible for regulating the public’s
exposure to air pollution. The Applicant is a productive doctoral student at the University of Colorado- Anschutz
Medical Campus, which offers state-of-the-art research facilities, internationally recognized faculty in obesity
and diabetes, and a plethora of career development resources for doctoral students. The Applicant has
assembled a strong mentorship team that comprises environmental scientists and lifecourse epidemiology
experts and developed a comprehensive training plan to build specialized research and analytic skills,
including 1) build knowledge in lifecourse epidemiology methods and study design, 2) gain skills in analytic
approaches for complex correlated and spatially defined environmental exposures, and 3) develop
methodologic expertise in statistical modeling techniques for longitudinal data. Through the completion of the
proposed research and training plan, the Applicant will develop the skills necessary to successfully complete
the proposed project and to continue on the path towards her career goal of becoming an independent
researcher studying the impacts of environmental exposures on chronic diseases across the lifecourse.