The Programming Research in Obesity, GRowth, Environment and Social Stress (PROGRESS) Cohort - 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. 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.
