Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) and Pregnancy in Ohio - The goal of the ECHO Ohio Cohort Site at Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (NCH-OSUWMC) is to contribute to the ECHO Cohort by collecting and providing valuable data on a population of participating pregnant participants, conceiving partners, and children who live in our region, so we can improve maternal and child health everywhere by better understanding how exposures prior to and during pregnancy impact childhood outcomes. The NCH-OSUWMC health system is highly experienced in contributing to large multicenter NIH studies involving pregnant and child participants and well-poised to contribute interdisciplinary leadership. We have maintained a large perinatal repository of clinical, survey, and rich biospecimen data from pregnant participants, their partners, and their children for over a decade. Our research coordinators and investigators are highly experienced in recruiting both pregnant participants and children for research investigations and securely and efficiently processing health data and biospecimens. Of note, our track record in retaining maternal/child dyads, as well as conceiving partners, for follow-up is strong. We provide specific expertise in evaluating lifestyle exposures in pregnancy, most prominently in maternal cardiovascular health, and outcomes expertise in pre-, peri-, and postnatal health and childhood neurodevelopment. We propose 1) evaluating the impact of maternal cardiovascular health during pregnancy using the American Heart Association Life's Essential 8 framework on child development and behavior to age 21, using existing ECHO Cohort Protocol core data elements and 2) investigating, using innovative methods, the association between evolving maternal dysglycemia patterns across the peripartum period and child socioemotional development and behavior while evaluating neonatal anthropometrics as potential mediators. We propose to evaluate the interaction between genes and lifestyle exposures on development via an association study complemented with imputed - omics data. In a preconception-focused aim, we propose examining the impact of maternal and paternal preconception cardiovascular health on development and behavior. Our contributions to the ECHO cohort will enhance knowledge leading to improved child health.
