Congratulations to Social Exposome Cluster member Dr. Anne Gadermann, who has won a New Frontiers in Research Fund Exploration Award from the Government of Canada! The grant, titled "From Society to Cell: Exploring the Social Exposome to Reduce Inequalities in Child Health and Development in Canada", will enable Dr. Gadermann and an interdisciplinary team of collaborators to study how and when early life social and environmental factors become biologically embedded, and how these factors contribute to inequalities in the development and health of Canadian children.

The project will involve linking B.C. population-based data on child development from the Early Development Instrument (EDI) to biological data from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study. This approach will integrate meaures of children's physical wellbeing and health, language and cognitive development, social and emotional development, and other factors with information about intrinsic biological responses (i.e. epigenomes, microbiomes, and metabolomes) that connect children's social exposomes with their lifelong physical and mental health. The interdisciplinary team will focus on how disparities in children's environments contribute to disparities in health and developmental outcomes. Ultimately, this knowledge may inform the development of new policies and interventions to reduce these inequalities. 

Additional members of the Social Exposome Cluster will also work on this project, namely Drs. Michael Kobor (Cluster Lead), Anita DeLongis, Tao Huan, Kimberlyn McGrail, Sara Mostafavi, Stuart Turvey (CHILD Study Lead), and Danielle van Jaarsveld. They will be joined on the team by additional collaborators Drs. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, Eva Oberle, Magdalena Janus, and Monique Gagné.

Article by Dr. Cath Ennis