New Data from University of California Illuminate Findings in Environmental Health Research (Using Birth Cohort Data to Estimate Prenatal Chemical Exposures for All Births around the New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site in Massachusetts)

2019 SEP 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Daily -- Current study results on Environmental Health - Environmental Health Research have been published. According to news reporting out of Irvine, United States, by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Children born near New Bedford, Massachusetts, have been prenatally exposed to multiple environmental chemicals, in part due to an older housing stock, maternal diet, and proximity to the New Bedford Harbor (NBH) Superfund site. Chemical exposure measures are not available for all births, limiting epidemiologic investigations and potential interventions.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of California, “We linked biomonitoring data from the New Bedford Cohort (NBC) and birth record data to predict prenatal exposures for all contemporaneous area births. We used prenatal exposure biomarker data from the NBC, a population-based cohort of 788 mother-infant pairs born during 1993-1998 to mothers living near the NBH, linked to their corresponding Massachusetts birth record data, to build predictive models for cord serum polychlorinated biphenyls (expressed as a sum, [Formula: see text]), [Formula: see text] (DDE), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), cord blood lead (Pb), and maternal hair mercury (Hg). We applied the best fit models (highest pseudo [Formula: see text]), with multivariable smooths of continuous variables, to predict exposure biomarkers for all 10,270 births during 1993-1998 around the NBH. We used 10-fold cross validation to validate the exposure models and the bootstrap method to characterize sampling variability in the exposure predictions. The 10-fold cross-validated [Formula: see text] for the [Formula: see text], DDE, HCB, Pb, and Hg exposure models were 0.54, 0.40, 0.34, 0.46, and 0.40, respectively. For each exposure model, multivariable smooths of continuous variables improved the fit compared with linear models. Other variables with significant effects on exposure estimates were paternal education, maternal race/ethnicity, and maternal ancestry. The resulting exposure predictions for all births had variability consistent with the NBC measured exposures. Predictive models using multivariable smoothing explained reasonable amounts of variance in prenatal exposure biomarkers.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Our analyses suggest that prenatal chemical exposures can be predicted for all contemporaneous births in the same geographic area by modeling available biomarker data for a subset of that population.”

For more information on this research see: Using Birth Cohort Data to Estimate Prenatal Chemical Exposures for All Births around the New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site in Massachusetts. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2019;127(8):087008. Environmental Health Perspectives can be contacted at: Us Dept Health Human Sciences Public Health Science, Natl Inst Health, Natl Inst Environmental Health Sciences, PO Box 12233, Res Triangle Pk, NC 27709-2233, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting R. Khalili, Environmental Health Sciences Graduate Program, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California, United States. Additional authors for this research include S.M. Bartell, J.I. Levy, M.P. Fabian, S. Korrick and V.M Vieira.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp4849. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Publisher contact information for the journal Environmental Health Perspectives is: Us Dept Health Human Sciences Public Health Science, Natl Inst Health, Natl Inst Environmental Health Sciences, PO Box 12233, Res Triangle Pk, NC 27709-2233, USA.

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