PROJECT SUMMARY (OVERALL)
The NIEHS/EPA Children's Environmental Health (CEH) and Disease Prevention Centers have rapidly
unraveled the contribution of chemical hazards to disease and disability. Substantial progress has been made
to develop interventions that reduce exposure, yet uptake and adoption of interventions remains limited at the
community and systems levels, in public health practice, and nationally. Most interventions have not been
adapted for diverse populations or settings, nor are they typically designed to scale, especially for low-income,
minority and low health literacy populations with disproportionate exposure. And few studies have rigorously
quantified the impacts of manufacturing changes, policy interventions, or dietary and other behavioral
interventions designed to reduce exposure. To achieve higher population-wide impact, CEH researchers
require expertise on dissemination research, implementation science methods and public health practice
frameworks to cross the translational bridge and achieve success in scaling evidence-based interventions
across communities for maximum impact. The objective of our proposed NYU Collaborative Center in
Children's Environmental Health Research and Translation (CEHRT) is to serve as a Resource for the CEH
community by: (1) developing meaningful prevention and intervention strategies that have promise to scale, (2)
adapting these strategies for diverse populations or settings, to achieve higher population-wide impact, and (3)
rigorously quantifying the impacts of manufacturing changes, policy interventions, or dietary and other
behavioral interventions designed to reduce exposure. NYU CEHRT unites the expertise of four existing
translational Centers to meet these urgent challenges and protect children from environmental hazards. The
cross-cutting themes of NYU CEHRT include: intervention testing, implementation science, health equity and
economic evaluation. NYU CEHRT is also home to two Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes
(ECHO) cohort centers (UH3OD023305 and UH3OD023332), and therefore extremely well-poised to integrate
new knowledge about emerging exposures likely to emerge from ECHO and the broader CEH community. It
leverages the expertise of a world-class analytical chemist, Kurunthachalam Kannan, whose NIEHS Human
Health Exposure Analysis Resource laboratory (U2CES026452) can support and stimulate innovative pilot
projects to rigorously examine changes in biomarkers of exposure resulting from modifications in diet, behavior
and household factors. NYU CEHRT will create a robust, mentored training environment that stimulates and
supports innovation by early stage investigators in promising time-sensitive, applied or interventional CEH
research. It will advance translational CEH research through innovative pilot projects to test and adapt
promising or evidence-based interventions in diverse settings, and utilize implementation science and
dissemination research frameworks to improve uptake and adoption of CEH research findings.