Investigating environmental links to disease
Our ground-breaking, multidisciplinary research answers important questions on how chemicals and contaminants in our homes and environment affect fertility, pregnancy, fetal and child development, and health equity. We prioritize filling gaps in knowledge that support clinical decision-making and public policy.
We have written or contributed to more than 180 studies on health and the environment with 23 studies published in peer-reviewed journals in 2020 alone.
UCSF Study Finds Evidence of 55 Chemicals Never Before Reported in People
Scientists at UC San Francisco have detected 109 chemicals in a study of pregnant women, including 55 chemicals never before reported in people and 42 “mystery chemicals,” whose sources and uses are unknown. The chemicals most likely come from consumer products or other industrial sources.
The study was published March 17 in Environmental Science & Technology.
We study how harmful chemicals put into our air, food, water, homes, products, and workplaces affect pregnancy, child development, and health.
Plastics are a petro-chemical product packed with endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can harm pregnancy, birth outcomes, neurodevelopment, and immune systems.
We examine how climate is impacting women's and children's health and how to protect pregnant people from wildfire smoke.
The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) is the largest NIH-funded study to date to explore how chemicals and pollutants in our environment impact pregnancy and child development.
The Discovering cancer Risks from Environmental contaminants And Maternal/child health (DREAM) project collected data to explore how chemicals put in our air, food, and water increase cancer risk.
In partnership with Stanford University, the Endometriosis Center for Action, Community Engagement and Training (ENACT) will work to improve endometriosis diagnosis and treatment by exploring the origins and environmental links to this disease.
PRHE conducts groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary research that answers important questions of how chemicals and contaminants in our homes and environment affect fertility, pregnancy, and fetal and child development. PRHE also mentors and trains the next generation of environmental health scientists.
Published Studies
Shorter telomere length is a biomarker of cellular aging influenced in early life. Exposure to environmental hazards and psychosocial stressors disproportionately impact socially marginalized populations and have been linked with shorter telomeres.
Prenatal and early life exposure to environmental chemicals can increase the risk of multiple adverse child health outcomes. However, biomonitoring data for young children remain limited. This study leveraged the nationwide ECHO Cohort to assess chemical exposures in 201 children aged 2–4 years between 2010 and 2021.
Research suggests exposure to chemical and non-chemical stressors may increase the risk of pregnancy complications, including gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Exposure to melamine and aromatic amines (AAs) is ubiquitous among pregnant people. However, studies investigating the maternal and fetal health effects of prenatal exposure are limited.
Returning results to participants of environmental exposure studies has become more common in recent years. Despite evidence of benefits for study participants, there are challenges in communicating results to people with limited resources or capacity to mitigate chemical exposures.
A major challenge in epidemiology is knowing when an exposure effect is large enough to be clinically important, in particular how to interpret a difference in mean outcome in unexposed/exposed groups. Where it can be calculated, the proportion/percentage beyond a suitable cut-point is useful in defining individuals at high risk to give a more meaningful outcome. In this simulation study we compute differences in outcome means and proportions that arise from hypothetical small effects in vulnerable sub-populations.
Camp Fire smoke exposure in California (November 8-22, 2018) was associated with increased rates of preterm birth, with sensitive windows in the first trimester.
Pregnancy, wildfire, California, preterm birth, CAMP fire
Our understanding of the relationship of the human microbiome to health has expanded greatly, including its role in a range of conditions with developmental origins. The vaginal microbiome, in particular, has been associated with clinical outcomes such as infections in the reproductive tract and preterm birth, although not all studies have been consistent.