Neighborhood quality and positive health indicators among urban adolescents.

There is a growing epidemiologic interest to expand the scope of health research beyond disease and risk factors to a more comprehensive evaluation of all health states, including those on the positive end of the spectrum ("positive health"). Neighborhood quality (NQ) is a potentially modifiable factor that may influence positive health. We evaluated the association between perception of NQ in childhood and indicators of positive health among adolescents who live in low-income, urban neighborhoods of New York City.

Association Studies of Environmental Exposures, DNA Methylation and Children's Cognitive, Behavioral, and Mental Health Problems.

Prenatal environmental exposures have been associated with children's cognitive, behavioral, and mental health problems, and alterations in DNA methylation have been hypothesized as an underlying biological mechanism. However, when testing this hypothesis, it is often difficult to overcome the problem of multiple comparisons in statistical testing when evaluating a large number of developmental outcomes and DNA methylation sites as potential mediators. The objective of this study is to implement a 'meet-in-the-middle' approach with a sequential roadmap to address this concern.

Prenatal PM Exposure in Relation to Maternal and Newborn Telomere Length at Delivery.

Particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM) is a ubiquitous air pollutant that is increasingly threatening the health of adults and children worldwide. One health impact of elevated PM exposure is alterations in telomere length (TL)-protective caps on chromosome ends that shorten with each cell division.

A methodological pipeline to generate an epigenetic marker of prenatal exposure to air pollution indicators.

A barrier in the children's environmental health field has been the lack of early-warning systems to identify risks of childhood illness and developmental disorders. We aimed to develop a methodology to identify an accessible biomarker measured in a small amount of blood to distinguish newborns at elevated risk from a toxic prenatal exposure, using air pollutants as a case study. Because air pollutants are associated with altered DNA methylation, we developed a pipeline using DNA methylation signatures measured in umbilical cord blood, which could be used as predictors of prenatal exposure.