Meeker Lab - Exposure Science; Environmental and Reproductive Epidemiology

There is growing evidence and concern that reproductive and developmental health is impacted by our surrounding environment. Well-designed, hypothesis-based human studies are greatly needed to explore these relationships and inform risk reduction strategies. Exposure assessment is a vital component in environmental epidemiologic studies, yet the details of measuring exposure and the appropriateness of the exposure measures being used are often times overlooked. Inadequate attention to exposure estimation can lead to substantial exposure measurement error or misclassification, which in most cases will bias study results toward the null hypothesis and hinder the investigator's ability to see associations between exposure and outcome. Our research is focused on advancing the existing knowledge in these areas by utilizing state-of-the-art exposure biomarkers and molecular epidemiological techniques to study associations between environmental exposures and reproductive or developmental health, exposure marker utility and validation, conditions that lead to elevated exposures and strategies for exposure reduction, and individual factors associated with susceptibility to exposure and/or associated health outcomes.