How the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcome (ECHO) cohort can spur discoveries in environmental epidemiology

Abstract

The Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcome (ECHO) program at the National Institutes of Health is an innovative, large, collaborative research initiative whose mission is to enhance the health of children for generations to come. The goal of the ECHO program is to examine effects of a broad array of early environmental exposures on child health and development. The information includes longitudinal data and biospecimens from more than 100 000 children and family members from diverse settings across the United States ECHO investigators have published collaborative analyses showing associations of environmental exposures-primarily in the developmentally sensitive pre-, peri-, and postnatal periods-with preterm birth and childhood asthma, obesity, neurodevelopment, and positive health. Investigators have addressed health disparities, joint effects of environmental and social determinants, and effects of mixtures of chemicals. The ECHO cohort is now entering its second 7-year cycle (2023-2030), which will add the preconception period to its current focus on prenatal through adolescence. Through a controlled access public-use database, ECHO makes its deidentified data available to the general scientific community. ECHO cohort data provide opportunities to fill major knowledge gaps in environmental epidemiology and to inform policies, practices, and programs to enhance child health. This article is part of a Special Collection on Environmental Epidemiology.

Keywords: adolescent; child; child development; child health; cohort studies; environmental exposure; longitudinal study; pregnancy.

Figure 1

Map of Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcome (ECHO) cohort children’s states of birth, as of March 2023.

Figure 2

Public-use data from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcome (ECHO) cohort. COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019; DASH, Data and Specimen Hub.