How early lead exposure and childhood stress affect heart and metabolic health
Official title: Joint effects of early life Pb and psychosocial exposures on stress and cardiometabolic health
Funded at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor · NIH-11369536 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether lead exposure and stressful or supportive experiences in early life alter stress biology and raise the risk of heart and metabolic problems in adolescents and young adults.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Michigan at Ann Arbor NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Ann Arbor, United States) |
| Project start | March 20, 2025 |
| Project end | August 31, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $204,679 |
| NIH project number | 4R00ES036294-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11369536 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are children, adolescents, or young adults with early-life lead exposure or high childhood psychosocial stress who can provide health information and biosamples or are enrolled in partner cohorts.
✕Less likely to help
People without a history of early lead exposure or psychosocial stress, or those seeking immediate clinical treatment, are unlikely to receive direct medical benefit from this observational work.
What this research studies
You'll be followed from early life into adolescence while researchers measure your early lead and other metal exposures and record stressful or supportive experiences. They'll test blood and other samples for stress markers (such as cortisol and inflammation) and for cardiometabolic signs like blood pressure, lipids, and insulin resistance. The team will analyze how lead and psychosocial factors together affect stress biology and later heart and metabolic health, and whether positive social supports reduce harm. The work uses existing birth and child cohorts and biospecimens and combines exposure data with health measures over time.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help identify children at higher risk and point to social or public-health strategies that protect against future heart and metabolic disease.
How similar studies have gone: Previous research has linked lead and psychosocial stress separately to worse cardiometabolic outcomes, but human studies testing their combined effects are rare, so this approach is relatively novel.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Halabicky, Olivia Maryfrances — University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
- Study coordinator: Halabicky, Olivia Maryfrances
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.