Different sources of environmental exposures combined with climate change have serious health implications, particularly for pregnant women and children.
Alongside traditional pollutants, chemicals, and new contaminants like microplastics and nanoparticles, pregnant women also have an increased susceptibility to environmental and climate-related exposures such as extreme temperatures and air pollution.
However, the underlying biological mechanisms behind climate-related exposures are yet to be fully explored. This is needed to create appropriate climate-related diagnostic, therapeutic, and other preventative measures.
A stress hormone known as cortisol regulates how the human body works but excessive cortisol release during pregnancy has been found to have negative effects on maternal and child health outcomes.
CLEAR is seeking to understand whether climate-related exposures induce excessive release of cortisol, resulting in negative health outcomes.
Moreover, exposure to greenness or green space and surface water is found to be beneficial to human health.
It's important to examine if there are relationships between these exposures and cortisol levels and whether exposure to greenness and surface water, especially greenness could reduce the negative effects of temperature and air pollution on cortisol levels.
This project will investigate these critical questions by taking advantage of the hair cortisol levels measured among the subset of pregnant women enrolled in ORIGINS.
The findings will provide preliminary evidence for further project and inform preventative measures and further exploration of appropriate climate-related diagnostic and therapeutic markers.
Investigators
- Dr Sylvester Dodzi Nyadanu, Curtin University
- Professor Desiree Silva, ORIGINS Co-Director, The Kids Research Institute Australia
- Professor Gavin Pereira, Curtin University
- Dr Jackie Davis, ORIGINS Co-Director, The Kids Research Institute Australia
- Professor Magdy Elnashar, Curtin University
- Professor Crispin Dass, Curtin University
- Associate Professor Brad Zhang, Curtin University
- Dr Nina D'Vaz, ORIGINS Biobank Manager, The Kids Research Institute Australia
- Associate Professor Peter Franklin, The University of Western Australia