New directions in understanding the role of environmental contaminants in child development: Four themes

Abstract

Environmental contaminants, which include several heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and other harmful chemicals, impair several domains of child development. This article describes four themes from recent research on the impact of environmental contaminants on child development. The first theme, disparities in exposure, focuses on how marginalized communities are disproportionately exposed to harmful environmental contaminants. The second theme, complexity of exposures, encapsulates recent emphases on timing of exposures and mixtures of multiple exposures. The third theme, mechanisms that link exposures to outcomes, focuses on processes that elucidate how contaminants impact outcomes. The fourth theme, mitigating risks associated with exposures, sheds light on potential protective factors that could ameliorate many of the harmful effects of contaminant exposures. Developmental scientists are well positioned to contribute to interdisciplinary research that addresses these themes, which could foster additional conceptual and empirical innovations and inform policies and practices to mitigate risks and improve children's well-being. K E Y W O R D S child development, developmental science, environmental contaminants, environmental health, interdisciplinary research, lead exposure, toxicants The physical environment plays a critical role in human health and well-being across the lifespan. Unfortunately, exposure to harmful contaminants in the physical environment is nearly ubiquitous. Based on a recent estimate from the World Health Organization,

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The impact of social disadvantage on autonomic physiology of latinx adolescents: The role of environmental risks

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“…Clearly, greater integration of research across multiple fields is needed to understand the complex mechanistic relations linking water toxin exposure to ANS functioning. The chronic autonomic consequences of day-to-day toxin exposure may play a key role in studies of poverty or socioeconomic adversity resulting in "stress getting under the skin" to affect peripheral stress physiology, yet this has received scant attention in developmental research (Miller et al, 2019;Trentacosta & Mulligan, 2020).…”

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