Frederica P. Perera, DrPH, PhD

Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health: The Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) conducts community-based research in the United States and overseas to study the health effects of prenatal and early postnatal exposures to common urban pollutants. The overall aim of the research is to prevent environmentally related disease in children - specifically adverse birth outcomes, asthma, and neurobehavioral impairment. The Center's major studies involve mothers and children in New York City, including Northern Manhattan and the WTC area, Krakow, Poland, and Chongqing and Shanxi in China. Together, these studies provide a unique opportunity to assess the effects of environmental toxicants on children's health and development across a wide range of exposure levels, ethnicities and socioeconomic strata. The research is also assessing the impacts on children's health of fossil fuel- related climate change and air pollution and the benefits of intervention.

Mother's and Children Study in Northern Manhattan: The research study, which began in 1998, examines the health effects of exposure in pregnant women and babies to air pollutants such as vehicle exhausts, commercial fuel burning, tobacco smoke, residential pesticides, flame retardants, chemicals in plastics, and cockroach and mouse allergens. The study focuses on a sample of 700 low-income mothers of color and their children living in the New York City neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Harlem, and the South Bronx, where rates of asthma are the highest in the nation, and rates of low birth weight are higher than in the rest of New York City. African Americans and Latinos in these communities also represent high-risk groups for adverse birth outcomes, impaired development, and some types of cancer. Through this research, CCCEH investigators have found links between prenatal exposure to common environmental pollutants and children's risk of developmental delay, behavioral problems, obesity, asthma, and cancer.

Healthy Home Healthy Child Community Education Campaign: CCCEH is dedicated to raising public awareness of the health risks to children exposed to common air pollutants as well as methods for minimizing risk. Investigators work closely with a Community Advisory Board of eight community-based health service and environmental advocacy organizations to deliver practical information to local community residents in an effort to increase community awareness of environmental hazards and alert families to methods they can use to protect children from toxicants in the home. This award-winning community education campaign, Healthy Home Healthy Child, is produced in English and Spanish. Information is disseminated through workshops with parents living in Washington Heights, Harlem, and the South Bronx, community conferences in which CCCEH scientific investigators present research results, and low-literate print materials distributed to families via local pediatric and obstetric clinics and private practices, community-based organizations, businesses, and houses of worship. This information is also shared with the broader general public through the Center's web site (www.ccceh.org) and popular media coverage (television, radio, and print) of newly released research findings. The Center's lead community partner organization is West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT). In 2012, CCCEH and WEACT worked together to expand the campaign with a holistic method that broadens the focus from a single exposure or health outcome approach. In July 2013, CCCEH completed a set of 6 bilingual (English and Spanish) educational materials utilizing the CCCEH's new focus on providing holistic strategies to reduce exposure to a range of environmental toxicants rather than focusing on one chemical or health outcome. CCCEH has actively distributed these materials to the Northern Manhattan and South Bronx community through our CASB members, local nonprofit organizations and direct outreach. Since September 2013, the Center has distributed over 11,000 HHHC holistic campaign brochures. Additionally, we have developed a system for tracking the number of brochures distributed, what organizations make the request, and their intended use. This system allows us to better understand the reach of our materials and how they are being utilized in the community.