ELEMENT
Delivering Discovery Across Generations
The Early Life Exposure in Mexico to ENvironmental Toxicants (ELEMENT) Project is a mother– child pregnancy and birth cohort originally initiated in the mid-1990s to explore: (1) whether enhanced mobilization of lead from maternal bone stores during pregnancy poses a risk to fetal and subsequent offspring neurodevelopment; and (2) whether maternal calcium supplementation during pregnancy and lactation can suppress bone lead mobilization and mitigate the adverse effects of lead exposure on offspring health and development. Over the past two decades, ELEMENT has widened its research aims to include additional exposures that affect the health of the mothers entering midlife, and the children entering young adulthood. Health exposures of interest have expanded to include environmental chemicals, physical activity, sleep, diet, and many more.
ELEMENT PROJECT FOLLOW UP
If you are interested in learning more about the data ELEMENT has available at our different data collection time points, you can explore our searchable database.
ELEMENT TODAY
ELEMENT Mothers
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ELEMENT just completed its most recent visit with the mothers that took place from April 2023 and was completed in September 2025. This visit was funded by two grants: “Metabolic Health Risk Among Mid-Life Women: The Role of Toxicants, Inflammation, and Epigenetics” (MLM R01) and “Relating Phthalate and Metal Exposure during Pregnancy and Perimenopause to Bone Health and Body Composition to Midlife” (BONE R01).
MLM R01 Aims:
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Aim 1: Ascertain the role of exposure to phenols and phthalates in adulthood on the development and progression of metabolic syndrome and its components in 600 women in mid-life.
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Aim 2: Investigate the inflammatory mechanisms that may underlie associations between exposure to phenols and phthalates with changes in metabolic biomarkers over 2 mid-life visits spanning 3 years.
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Exploratory Aim 3: Uncover other potential biological pathways that link phenol and phthalate exposures prospectively to MetS and progression in midlife using an epigenetics approach.
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BONE R01 Aims:
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​Aim 1: Investigate associations of BMI through pregnancy, 1-year, and 6-12 years post-partum with structural bone health (BMD, microstructure) and body composition in midlife.
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Aims 2 and 3: Investigate associations of phthalate and metals exposure during pregnancy and perimenopause with: BMD, bone microstructure, and adipose tissue and skeletal muscle distribution (Aim 2), serum biomarkers of bone health (Aim 3), in midlife.
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ELEMENT Children
In 2023, ELEMENT began re-engaging the children who are now young adults, conducting a phone interview to collect data on social and economic variables at both the household and individual level to assess the intergenerational effects these influences have on health outcomes. This effort is funded by the R24/U24 grant “E3Gen: Multigenerational influences of social structure on toxicant exposures and life course health in the ELEMENT cohort.” The aim of this ongoing project is to encourage participation and prevent loss to follow up of 600 of the original ELEMENT children now aged 16-28 years and to establish passive surveillance to recruit their children (ELEMENT grandchildren) who have been or will be born.
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Thanks to the success of the re-engagement program, ELEMENT will begin a new visit in 2026 that will be focusing on the ELEMENT children/young adults. This visit will be funded by three grants; “E3Gen: Multigenerational influences of social structure on toxicant exposures and life course health in the ELEMENT cohort” (R24/U24), “Circadian disruption and cardiometabolic risk during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood” (YA1 R01), and the grant “Joint effects of early life Pb and psychosocial exposures on stress and cardiometabolic health” (YA1 R00).
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YA1 R24/U24 Aims:
Aim 1: Create and collect household and individual variables to examine direct and intergenerational effects of social and economic influences, and effect modification of environmental exposures, on life course health.
Aim 2: Encourage participation among 600 ELEMENT offspring who are entering young adulthood and establish passive surveillance for future recruitment of their children projected to be born over the next 5 years. These data will prepare for future scientific needs examining:
Aim 3: Develop and test novel, nonlinear, multidimensional methods for qualitative and quantitative data integration and harmonization, data sharing, and cross-project data communication.
YA1 R01 Aims:
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Aim 1: Investigate the longitudinal relationships of circadian disruption and cardiometabolic risk components measured three times from adolescence to early adulthood.
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Aim 2: Conduct repeated-measures longitudinal analysis of circadian disruption markers and leukocyte DNA methylation of core circadian and circadian-related genes measured at ages 15 and 26, to identify potential mediators of the relationship between circadian disruption and cardiometabolic risk.
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Aim 3: Evaluate whether SDB modifies the association between circadian disruption and cardiometabolic risk in young adulthood.
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YA1 R00 Aims:
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Aim 1: Determine associations of early environmental co-exposure mixture with cardiometabolic health from adolescence to young adulthood
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​Aim 2: Assess physiological stress pathways underlying associations between early environmental co-exposures and young adult cardiometabolic health
