Some chemicals added to furniture, electronics and many other consumer products to prevent fires may have unintended developmental consequences for young children, according to a pilot study conducted by researchers at Oregon State University. The study recruited 92 Oregon children between ages 3-5 to wear a silicone wristband for seven days to measure exposure to flame retardants. When researchers analyzed teacher-related social behavior assessments and exposure levels, they observed that children who had more exposure to organophosphate classes of flame retardants (which have been added to consumer products more recently) were more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors such as aggression, defiance, hyperactivity, inattention and bullying.
On Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 9:00am Alaska/10:00am Pacific/1:00pm Eastern, Dr. Molly Kile, associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU and principal investigator of the study, discussed the study's findings and why further research is needed to better understand the links between widely used flame retardants and children's social skill development.
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Dr. Molly Kile is an associate professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University. Dr. Kile's major research interests are environmental, molecular epidemiology and global health. She is interested in understanding how exposure to chemicals in our environment influences maternal and child health, specifically, how chemical exposures in utero may alter epigenetic mechanisms that could contribute to chronic diseases later in life. Dr. Kile is also interested in how genetic and other individual factors such as nutritional factors may interact with chemical exposures to influences susceptibility to disease. Dr. Kile received her doctorate from Harvard School of Public Health in Environmental Health. She continued her postdoctoral training at Harvard in molecular epidemiology
This call was hosted by the CHE-AK Partnership. It lasted for 1 hour and was recorded for the call archive.