Racial and ethnic differences in prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and parabens in the ECHO Cohort

Michael S Bloom¹, Sudhi Upadhyaya², Adaeze W Nzegwu², Jordan R Kuiper³, Jessie P Buckley⁴, Judy Aschner⁵, Dana Barr⁶, Emily S Barrett⁷, Deborah H Bennett⁸, Dana Dabelea^{9

10}, Anne L Dunlop¹¹, Alma Fuller¹², Margaret Karagas¹³, Donghai Liang⁶, John Meeker¹⁴, Rachel Miller¹⁵, Thomas G O'Connor¹⁶, Megan E Romano¹³, Sheela Sathyanarayana¹⁷, Anne P Starling^{4

10}, Annemarie Stroustrup¹⁸, Deborah J Watkins¹⁴; ECHO Cohort Consortium

Collaborators, Affiliations

Collaborators

ECHO Cohort Consortium:
P Brian Smith, L Kristin Newby, Linda Adair, Lisa P Jacobson, Diane Catellier, Monica McGrath, Christian Douglas, Priya Duggal, Emily Knapp, Amii Kress, Courtney K Blackwell, Maxwell A Mansolf, Jin-Shei Lai, Emily Ho, David Cella, Richard Gershon, Michelle L Macy, Suman R Das, Jane E Freedman, Simon A Mallal, John A McLean, Ravi V Shah, Meghan H Shilts, Akram N Alshawabkeh, Jose F Cordero, John Meeker, Leonardo Trasande, Carlos A Camargo Jr, Kohei Hasegawa, Zhaozhong Zhu, Ashley F Sullivan, Dana Dabelea, Wei Perng, Traci A Bekelman, Greta Wilkening, Sheryl Magzamen, Brianna F Moore, Anne P Starling, Deborah J Rinehart, Daphne Koinis Mitchell, Viren D'Sa, Sean C L Deoni, Hans-Georg Mueller, Cristiane S Duarte, Catherine Monk, Glorisa Canino, Jonathan Posner, Tenneill Murray, Claudia Lugo-Candelas, Patricia A Brennan, Christine Hockett, Amy Elliott, Assiamira Ferrara, Lisa A Croen, Monique M Hedderson, John Ainsworth, Leonard B Bacharier, Casper G Bendixsen, James E Gern, Diane R Gold, Tina V Hartert, Daniel J Jackson, Christine C Johnson, Christine L M Joseph, Meyer Kattan, Gurjit K Khurana Hershey, Robert F Lemanske Jr, Susan V Lynch, Rachel L Miller, George T O'Connor, Carole Ober, Dennis Ownby, Katherine Rivera-Spoljaric, Patrick H Ryan, Christine M Seroogy, Anne Marie Singh, Robert A Wood, Edward M Zoratti, Rima Habre, Shohreh Farzan, Frank D Gilliland, Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Deborah H Bennett, Julie B Schweitzer, Rebecca J Schmidt, Janine M LaSalle, Alison E Hipwell, Kate E Keenan, Catherine J Karr, Nicole R Bush, Kaja Z LeWinn, Sheela Sathyanarayana, Qi Zhao, Frances Tylavsky, Kecia N Carroll, Christine T Loftus, Leslie D Leve, Jody M Ganiban, Jenae M Neiderhiser, Scott T Weiss, Augusto A Litonjua, Cindy T McEvoy, Eliot R Spindel, Robert S Tepper, Craig J Newschaffer, Kristen Lyall, Heather E Volk, Rebecca Landa, Sally Ozonoff, Joseph Piven, Heather Hazlett, Juhi Pandey, Robert Schultz, Steven Dager, Kelly Botteron, Daniel Messinger, Wendy Stone, Jennifer Ames, Richard K Miller, Emily Oken, Michele R Hacker, Tamarra James-Todd, T Michael O'Shea Jr, Rebecca C Fry, Jean A Frazier, Rachana Singh, Caitlin Rollins, Angela Montgomery, Ruben Vaidya, Robert M Joseph, Lisa K Washburn, Semsa Gogcu, Kelly Bear, Julie V Rollins, Stephen R Hooper, Genevieve Taylor, Wesley Jackson, Amanda Thompson, Julie Daniels, Michelle Hernandez, Kun Lu, Michael Msall, Madeleine Lenski, Rawad Obeid, Steven L Pastyrnak, Elizabeth Jensen, Christina Sakai, Hudson Santos, Jean M Kerver, Nigel Paneth, Charles J Barone 2nd, Michael R Elliott, Douglas M Ruden, Chris Fussman, Julie B Herbstman, Amy Margolis, Susan L Schantz, Sarah Dee Geiger, Andrea Aguiar, Karen Tabb, Rita Strakovsky, Tracey Woodruff, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Amy Padula, Joseph B Stanford, Christina A Porucznik, Angelo P Giardino, Rosalind J Wright, Robert O Wright, Brent Collett, Nicole Baumann-Blackmore, Ronald Gangnon, Chris G McKennan, Jo Wilson, Matt Altman, Judy L Aschner, Annemarie Stroustrup, Stephanie L Merhar, Paul E Moore, Gloria S Pryhuber, Mark Hudak, Ann Marie Reynolds Lyndaker, Andrea L Lampland, Burton Rochelson, Sophia Jan, Matthew J Blitz, Michelle W Katzow, Zenobia Brown, Codruta Chiuzan, Timothy Rafael, Dawnette Lewis, Natalie Meirowitz, Brenda Poindexter, Tebeb Gebretsadik, Sarah Osmundson, Jennifer K Straughen, Amy Eapen, Andrea Cassidy-Bushrow, Ganesa Wegienka, Alex Sitarik, Kim Woodcroft, Audrey Urquhart, Albert Levin, Tisa Johnson-Hooper, Brent Davidson, Tengfei Ma, Emily S Barrett, Martin J Blaser, Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, Daniel B Horton, Manuel Jimenez, Todd Rosen, Kristy Palomares, Lyndsay A Avalos, Yeyi Zhu, Kelly J Hunt, Roger B Newman, Michael S Bloom, Mallory H Alkis, James R Roberts, Sunni L Mumford, Heather H Burris, Sara B DeMauro, Lynn M Yee, Aaron Hamvas, Antonia F Olidipo, Andrew S Haddad, Lisa R Eiland, Nicole T Spillane, Kirin N Suri, Stephanie A Fisher, Jeffrey A Goldstein, Leena B Mithal, Raye-Ann O DeRegnier, Nathalie L Maitre, Ruby H N Nguyen, Meghan M JaKa, Abbey C Sidebottom, Michael J Paidas, JoNell E Potter, Natale Ruby, Lunthita Duthely, Arumugam Jayakumar, Karen Young, Isabel Maldonado, Meghan Miller, Jonathan L Slaughter, Sarah A Keim, Courtney D Lynch, Kartik K Venkatesh, Kristina W Whitworth, Elaine Symanski, Thomas F Northrup, Hector Mendez-Figueroa, Ricardo A Mosquera, Margaret R Karagas, Juliette C Madan, Debra M MacKenzie, Johnnye L Lewis, Brandon J Rennie, Bennett L Leventhal, Young Shin Kim, Somer Bishop, Sara S Nozadi, Li Luo, Barry M Lester, Carmen J Marsit, Todd Everson, Cynthia M Loncar, Elisabeth C McGowan, Stephen J Sheinkopf, Brian S Carter, Jennifer Check, Jennifer B Helderman, Charles R Neal, Lynne M Smith

Affiliations

¹ Department of Global and Community Health, College of Public Health, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. mbloom22@gmu.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁵ Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation, Hackensack, NJ, USA.
⁶ Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁷ Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Rutgers School of Public Health, and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
⁸ Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology, University of Colorado, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO, USA.
¹⁰ Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes (LEAD) Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.
¹¹ Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
¹² School of Nursing, College of Public Health, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
¹³ Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹⁵ Division of Clinical Immunology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁶ Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹⁸ Northwell Health, Cohen Children's Medical Center and the Departments of Pediatrics and Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology & Prevention, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, New Hyde Park, NY, USA.

PMID: 39955434
DOI: 10.1038/s41370-025-00750-w

Racial and ethnic differences in prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and parabens in the ECHO Cohort

Michael S Bloom et al. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2025.

. 2025 Feb 15.

doi: 10.1038/s41370-025-00750-w. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Collaborators

ECHO Cohort Consortium:
P Brian Smith, L Kristin Newby, Linda Adair, Lisa P Jacobson, Diane Catellier, Monica McGrath, Christian Douglas, Priya Duggal, Emily Knapp, Amii Kress, Courtney K Blackwell, Maxwell A Mansolf, Jin-Shei Lai, Emily Ho, David Cella, Richard Gershon, Michelle L Macy, Suman R Das, Jane E Freedman, Simon A Mallal, John A McLean, Ravi V Shah, Meghan H Shilts, Akram N Alshawabkeh, Jose F Cordero, John Meeker, Leonardo Trasande, Carlos A Camargo Jr, Kohei Hasegawa, Zhaozhong Zhu, Ashley F Sullivan, Dana Dabelea, Wei Perng, Traci A Bekelman, Greta Wilkening, Sheryl Magzamen, Brianna F Moore, Anne P Starling, Deborah J Rinehart, Daphne Koinis Mitchell, Viren D'Sa, Sean C L Deoni, Hans-Georg Mueller, Cristiane S Duarte, Catherine Monk, Glorisa Canino, Jonathan Posner, Tenneill Murray, Claudia Lugo-Candelas, Patricia A Brennan, Christine Hockett, Amy Elliott, Assiamira Ferrara, Lisa A Croen, Monique M Hedderson, John Ainsworth, Leonard B Bacharier, Casper G Bendixsen, James E Gern, Diane R Gold, Tina V Hartert, Daniel J Jackson, Christine C Johnson, Christine L M Joseph, Meyer Kattan, Gurjit K Khurana Hershey, Robert F Lemanske Jr, Susan V Lynch, Rachel L Miller, George T O'Connor, Carole Ober, Dennis Ownby, Katherine Rivera-Spoljaric, Patrick H Ryan, Christine M Seroogy, Anne Marie Singh, Robert A Wood, Edward M Zoratti, Rima Habre, Shohreh Farzan, Frank D Gilliland, Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Deborah H Bennett, Julie B Schweitzer, Rebecca J Schmidt, Janine M LaSalle, Alison E Hipwell, Kate E Keenan, Catherine J Karr, Nicole R Bush, Kaja Z LeWinn, Sheela Sathyanarayana, Qi Zhao, Frances Tylavsky, Kecia N Carroll, Christine T Loftus, Leslie D Leve, Jody M Ganiban, Jenae M Neiderhiser, Scott T Weiss, Augusto A Litonjua, Cindy T McEvoy, Eliot R Spindel, Robert S Tepper, Craig J Newschaffer, Kristen Lyall, Heather E Volk, Rebecca Landa, Sally Ozonoff, Joseph Piven, Heather Hazlett, Juhi Pandey, Robert Schultz, Steven Dager, Kelly Botteron, Daniel Messinger, Wendy Stone, Jennifer Ames, Richard K Miller, Emily Oken, Michele R Hacker, Tamarra James-Todd, T Michael O'Shea Jr, Rebecca C Fry, Jean A Frazier, Rachana Singh, Caitlin Rollins, Angela Montgomery, Ruben Vaidya, Robert M Joseph, Lisa K Washburn, Semsa Gogcu, Kelly Bear, Julie V Rollins, Stephen R Hooper, Genevieve Taylor, Wesley Jackson, Amanda Thompson, Julie Daniels, Michelle Hernandez, Kun Lu, Michael Msall, Madeleine Lenski, Rawad Obeid, Steven L Pastyrnak, Elizabeth Jensen, Christina Sakai, Hudson Santos, Jean M Kerver, Nigel Paneth, Charles J Barone 2nd, Michael R Elliott, Douglas M Ruden, Chris Fussman, Julie B Herbstman, Amy Margolis, Susan L Schantz, Sarah Dee Geiger, Andrea Aguiar, Karen Tabb, Rita Strakovsky, Tracey Woodruff, Rachel Morello-Frosch, Amy Padula, Joseph B Stanford, Christina A Porucznik, Angelo P Giardino, Rosalind J Wright, Robert O Wright, Brent Collett, Nicole Baumann-Blackmore, Ronald Gangnon, Chris G McKennan, Jo Wilson, Matt Altman, Judy L Aschner, Annemarie Stroustrup, Stephanie L Merhar, Paul E Moore, Gloria S Pryhuber, Mark Hudak, Ann Marie Reynolds Lyndaker, Andrea L Lampland, Burton Rochelson, Sophia Jan, Matthew J Blitz, Michelle W Katzow, Zenobia Brown, Codruta Chiuzan, Timothy Rafael, Dawnette Lewis, Natalie Meirowitz, Brenda Poindexter, Tebeb Gebretsadik, Sarah Osmundson, Jennifer K Straughen, Amy Eapen, Andrea Cassidy-Bushrow, Ganesa Wegienka, Alex Sitarik, Kim Woodcroft, Audrey Urquhart, Albert Levin, Tisa Johnson-Hooper, Brent Davidson, Tengfei Ma, Emily S Barrett, Martin J Blaser, Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, Daniel B Horton, Manuel Jimenez, Todd Rosen, Kristy Palomares, Lyndsay A Avalos, Yeyi Zhu, Kelly J Hunt, Roger B Newman, Michael S Bloom, Mallory H Alkis, James R Roberts, Sunni L Mumford, Heather H Burris, Sara B DeMauro, Lynn M Yee, Aaron Hamvas, Antonia F Olidipo, Andrew S Haddad, Lisa R Eiland, Nicole T Spillane, Kirin N Suri, Stephanie A Fisher, Jeffrey A Goldstein, Leena B Mithal, Raye-Ann O DeRegnier, Nathalie L Maitre, Ruby H N Nguyen, Meghan M JaKa, Abbey C Sidebottom, Michael J Paidas, JoNell E Potter, Natale Ruby, Lunthita Duthely, Arumugam Jayakumar, Karen Young, Isabel Maldonado, Meghan Miller, Jonathan L Slaughter, Sarah A Keim, Courtney D Lynch, Kartik K Venkatesh, Kristina W Whitworth, Elaine Symanski, Thomas F Northrup, Hector Mendez-Figueroa, Ricardo A Mosquera, Margaret R Karagas, Juliette C Madan, Debra M MacKenzie, Johnnye L Lewis, Brandon J Rennie, Bennett L Leventhal, Young Shin Kim, Somer Bishop, Sara S Nozadi, Li Luo, Barry M Lester, Carmen J Marsit, Todd Everson, Cynthia M Loncar, Elisabeth C McGowan, Stephen J Sheinkopf, Brian S Carter, Jennifer Check, Jennifer B Helderman, Charles R Neal, Lynne M Smith

Affiliations

¹ Department of Global and Community Health, College of Public Health, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. mbloom22@gmu.edu.
² Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁵ Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation, Hackensack, NJ, USA.
⁶ Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁷ Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Rutgers School of Public Health, and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
⁸ Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Epidemiology, University of Colorado, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO, USA.
¹⁰ Lifecourse Epidemiology of Adiposity and Diabetes (LEAD) Center, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.
¹¹ Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
¹² School of Nursing, College of Public Health, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.
¹³ Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹⁵ Division of Clinical Immunology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁶ Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹⁸ Northwell Health, Cohen Children's Medical Center and the Departments of Pediatrics and Occupational Medicine, Epidemiology & Prevention, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, New Hyde Park, NY, USA.

PMID: 39955434
DOI: 10.1038/s41370-025-00750-w

Abstract

Background: Research suggests racial/ethnic disparities in prenatal exposure to endocrine disrupting environmental phenols (EPs) in limited populations. However, no studies have investigated racial/ethnic disparities in prenatal EP exposure across the U.S.

Objectives: To estimate demographic differences in prenatal urinary EPs among participants in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort.

Methods: An analysis of 4006 pregnant ECHO participants was performed, with 7854 specimens collected from 1999-2020. Racial/ethnic identity was self-reported. Urinary levels of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP), 2,5-dichlorophenol (2,5-DCP), benzophenone-3 (BP-3), bisphenols A (BPA), F (BPF), and S (BPS), and methyl- (MePb), ethyl- (EtPb), propyl- (PrPb), and butyl- (BuPb) parabens were measured at one or more time points during pregnancy. Effect estimates were adjusted for age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, educational level, gestational age and season at urine collection, and ECHO cohort.

Results: Participants were classified as Hispanic of any race (n = 1658), non-Hispanic White (n = 1478), non-Hispanic Black (n = 490), and non-Hispanic Other (n = 362), which included individuals of multiple races. Urinary 2,4-DCP and 2,5-DCP concentrations were 2- to 4-fold higher among Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic Other participants relative to non-Hispanic White participants. MePb was ~2-fold higher among non-Hispanic Black (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.7-3.1) and non-Hispanic Other (95% CI: 1.5-2.8) participants. PrPb was similarly higher among non-Hispanic Black (95% CI: 1.7-3.7) and non-Hispanic Other (95% CI: 1.3-3.1) participants. EtPb was higher among non-Hispanic Black participants (3.1-fold; 95% CI 1.7-5.8). BP-3 was lower in Hispanic (0.7-fold; 95% CI: 0.5-0.9), non-Hispanic Black (0.4-fold; 95% CI: 0.3-0.5), and non-Hispanic Other (0.5-fold; 95% CI: 0.4-0.7) participants. Urinary BuPb, BPA, BPF, and BPS were similar across groups.

Impact statement: This multisite, observational cohort study investigated whether there are racial and ethnic differences in prenatal exposure to endocrine disrupting environmental phenols and parabens. Among 4006 participants from multiple U.S. cohorts who provided urine specimens during pregnancy, those who self-reported a racial and ethnic identity other than non-Hispanic White had higher urinary concentrations of 2,4-dichlorophenol, 2,5-dichlorophenol, methyl paraben, ethyl paraben, and propyl paraben and lower urinary concentrations of benzophenone-3 than those reporting as non-Hispanic White. These data show differences in prenatal concentrations of endocrine disrupting environmental phenols and parabens by racial and ethnic identity.

Keywords: Environmental phenols; Ethnicity; Health inequities; Parabens; Pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Ethical approval: All data collection and research methods were approved by IRBs at each cohort site and the ECHO Data Analysis Center, and all participants provided written informed consent.

References

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Racial and ethnic differences in prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and parabens in the ECHO Cohort

Collaborators

Affiliations

Racial and ethnic differences in prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and parabens in the ECHO Cohort

Authors

Collaborators

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Miscellaneous