Adverse environmental exposures in pregnancy can significantly alter the development of the fetus resulting in impaired child neurodevelopment. Such exposures can lead to epigenetic alterations like DNA methylation, which may be a marker of poor cognitive, motor and behavioral outcomes in the infant. Here we review studies that have assessed DNA methylation in cord blood following maternal expo...

Infancy and early childhood (ie, birth through age 24 months) represent a period of life with both exquisite opportunity and vulnerability for neurodevelopment. This is due to rapid brain development, both anatomic and functional, as well as to high nutrient requirements during a time of dependence on human milk and complementary foods. Complex interactions exist among nutrition, social, and ph...

Unexplained illnesses characterized by nonspecific, multisystem complaints are often attributed to occupational or environmental chemical exposures. This raises difficulties for the regulatory authorities, who are frequently unable to agree on the existence, nature, or source of such illnesses. It is proposed that many of these difficulties derive from an adherence to a traditional medical mode...

OBJECTIVE Natural disasters exacerbate risks of hazardous environmental exposures and adverse health consequences. The present study determined the proportion of previously identified lead industrial sites in urban locations that are at high risk for dispersal of toxic chemicals by natural disasters. METHODS Geographic analysis from publicly available data identified former lead smelting plan...

Edi tor ’s Note : NEHA strives to provide up-to-date and relevant information on environmental health and to build partnerships in the profession. In pursuit of these goals, we feature a column from the Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in every issue of the Journal. In this column, EHSB and guest authors from across CDC will hig...

Three to 4 million children and adolescents in the United States live within 1 mile of a federally designated Superfund hazardous waste disposal site and are at risk of exposure to chemical toxicants released from these sites into air, groundwater, surface water, and surrounding communities. Because of their patterns of exposure and their biological vulnerability, children are uniquely suscepti...

The Russian Federation has made an intensive effort to compile and use information on the environment and human health. In 1996-1997, we evaluated the information that was collected and analyzed on the local (raion), regional (oblast), and federal levels with reference to its usefulness in the assessment of environmental health effects. The Russian Federation maintains standardized nationwide i...

edi tor ’s note: NEHA strives to provide up-to-date and relevant information on environmental health and to build partnerships in the profession. In pursuit of these goals, we feature a column from the Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in every issue of the Journal. In this column, EHSB and guest authors from across CDC will high...

Public concern about the environment can be unpredictable because it is influenced by numerous factors. Environmental health issues often emerge as important because the public is worried about their health especially when it comes to cancer. Public fear of cancer from environmental exposures is reinforced by many of the US regulations that set pollutant limits based on reducing the risk of can...

BACKGROUND The links between nature and nurture need to be redefined to accommodate anthropogenic chemical contamination. Although some local remediation of contamination has occurred, at the global level this is simply not possible. Contaminants are spread by population migration, by introduction via the food chain, and through air and water currents, even to regions that were never exposed di...