The ECHO Program

The National Institutes of Health has launched the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program, an initiative to advance understanding of the effects of a broad range of early environmental exposures on child health and development. ECHO takes the best of what we have learned from existing participant population and child health studies and combines it with current data and technology to launch a new and different approach to child health research, addressing important questions with solution-oriented answers that speak to a highly diverse population of children and adolescents.

Mission

To enhance the health of children for generations to come.

ISPCTN clinical sites across the United States

Goals

1 Improve the health of children and adolescents by conducting observational and interventional research that will inform high-impact programs, policies, and practices.

2 Institute best practices for conducting Team Science in the 21st century, giving researchers the tools to work collaboratively to improve child health outcomes.

Studying Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), focused on:

Healthy Babies

Pre-, Peri-, Postnatal

Healthy Brains

Neurodevelopment

Healthy Bodies

Pediatric Obesity

Healthy Breathing

Upper & Lower Airways

Healthy All Over

Positive Health

5 Outcomes

For Child Health

The Core Elements Addressed Across All Studies Are:

Demographics
Typical early health and development
Genetic influences on early childhood health and development
Environmental factors
Patient/Person (parent and child) Reported Outcomes (PROs)

These studies will share standardized core data elements managed by a central coordinating center and an associated data analysis center.

To support ECHO and other pediatric environmental exposures research, NIH awarded $144 million in new grants in fiscal year 2015 for the development of new tools to enhance measurement of environmental exposures.