Harmonizing Biomarker Measurements
in Longitudinal Studies of Children’s Health
and the Environment

• Authors: Ruth Etzel , Marie-Aline Charles , Michael Dellarco , Katie Gajeski , Karl-Heinz Jöckel , Steven Hirschfeld , Michihiro Kamijima , Toshihiro Kawamoto , Marike Kolossa-Gehring , Shoji Nakayama , Börge Schmidt , Ying Tian , Birgit Wolz , Cécile Zaros , Jun Zhang
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Large scale studies of environmental influences
on children’s health and development are being planned
or conducted in many places, including Japan, France,
Shanghai (China), the United States, and Germany.
The objective of these “next generation” studies is to
better understand a broad range of environmental and
social factors that influence the health and well-being
of children. Some of these studies are designed to enroll
tens of thousands of children and follow them for many
years to investigate the influence of the environment on
child growth, development and health. Environment is
broadly defined in these studies and includes investigation
of chemical, biological, physical and socioeconomic
factors. An international group composed of study teams
from Japan, France, Shanghai (China), the United States,
and Germany has been meeting since 2011 to exchange
information and work towards harmonization of processes
that would provide the opportunity to compare methods and develop procedures to conduct combined analyses
of results and data pooling procedures. Harmonization
of infant health outcomes, biomarkers, environmental
measurements, socioeconomic and migration status has
been initiated. This manuscript provides an overview of the
Environment and Child Health International Birth Cohort
Group and its history, describes the progress of work, and
discusses the advantages of this international collaborative
effort.

Keywords

EN

Children’s health; birth cohort; harmonization; cohort study; lead; mercury; organophosphates; phthalates

• Publisher: De Gruyter Open
• Journal: Biomonitoring
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1

Dates

accepted

15 - 8 - 2014

online

29 - 10 - 2014

received

30 - 7 - 2014

Contributors

author

Ruth Etzel

• Joseph J. Zilber School of Public
  Health, University of Wisconsin, 1240 N. 10th Street, Milwaukee,
  WI 53201-0413

author

Marie-Aline Charles

• Unite mixte Ined-Inserm-EFS Elfe, INED, Paris,
  France

author

Michael Dellarco

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of
  Child Health and Human Development, National Children’s Study,
  Bethesda, MD

author

Katie Gajeski

• Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health, University of
  Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI

author

Karl-Heinz Jöckel

• Institut für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie
  und Epidemiologie, Universitätsklinikum Essen, Germany

author

Steven Hirschfeld

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of
  Child Health and Human Development, National Children‘s Study,
  Chief Medical Officer, Bethesda

author

Michihiro Kamijima

• Department of Occupational and Environmental
  Health, Nagoya City University , Nagoya , Japan

author

Toshihiro Kawamoto

• DABT, National Center for Japan Environment
  and Children‘s Study , Department of Environmental Health, University
  of Occupational and Environmental Health School of Medicine,
  Tsukuba, Japan

author

Marike Kolossa-Gehring

• Department of Environmental Hygiene,
  Umweltbundesamt/Federal Environment Agency, Berlin, Germany

author

Shoji Nakayama

• Centre for Environmental Health Sciences, National
  Centre for Japan Environment and Children‘s Study, National
  Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

author

Börge Schmidt

• Institut für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und
  Epidemiologie, Universitätsklinikum Essen, Germany

author

Ying Tian

• MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children‘s Environmental
  Health, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

author

Birgit Wolz

• Head of Division IG II 2 “Environment and Health”, Federal
  Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear
  Safety, Bonn, Germany

author

Cécile Zaros

• UM Elfe Ined-Inserm-EFS, Paris, France

author

Jun Zhang

• MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children‘s Environmental
  Health, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of
  Medicine, Shanghai, China

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/bimo-2014-0006