A prospective study of critical environmental exposures in formative early life that impact lifelong health in rural US children: the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study

We are advancing the success of the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes program that seeks to “enhance the health of children for generations to come” as one of the Pregnancy and Pediatric Cohort Study Sites. Activities include accruing data and biospecimens on participating adults and their children. Data and biospecimens from our cohort contribute to Concept Proposals, including Opportunity and Innovation Fund (OIF) awards to early career investigators. The cohort’s biospecimens are leveraged for ECHO-Wide laboratory analyses led by our Dartmouth team and other investigators. This includes the ECHO Genome Wide Association Study. Non-DNA samples shipped to the ECHO Biorepository include urine, hair, blood, and teeth. We actively take part in ECHO program leadership, committees and working groups, designing and sharing protocols, and creating instructional videos and participant feedback materials. We are recruiting additional pregnancies, enlisting current partners, and following children previously accrued into the cohort and newly born in this study phase. We adhere to the ECHO Cohort Protocol and rely on the program’s REDCap Central database and single IRB. We capitalize on ECHO’s unprecedented data and samples, along with Dartmouth’s robust infrastructure and expertise. Thus, our study site fills a critical niche in the ECHO program and will continue to provide leadership and collaboration in support of its overall mission.