Our Phenotyping and Environmental Modifier Facility Core (PEMFC) organizes Mount Sinai's extensive existing environmental epidemiology, clinical, psychometric, analytic and technical expertise as a key Center resource. The PEMFC helped catalyze the remarkable growth in environmental health research over the first 3 years of our Center linking environmental exposure and their modifiers to measures of health and development. The PEMFC provides Center Members access to expertise and state-of-the-art equipment necessary for clinical phenotyping and quantification of health and developmental outcomes across the lifespan as well as the measurement of modifiers of chemical environmental toxins. The PEMFC provides clinical, technical and scientific input to enhance the selection of age-appropriate valid, reliable and time effective low burden instruments to measure health and disease across the lifespan with particular focus on critical periods (pregnancy, infancy, early childhood, adolescence) . This includes Center supported space and phenotyping equipment covering target priority areas identified to date (neurodevelopment/behavior, obesity, asthma, allergy, endocrine, renal and cardiovascular phenotypes). The Core also facilitates translational research aimed toward more fully elucidating the impacts of key interactions between chemical toxicants and environmental modifiers across development, specifically psychological stress and other social determinants as well as nutrition. Given that exposure to chemical and non-chemical toxicants as well as nutritional status often track together along socioeconomic gradients, a related focus will be the multi-faceted elucidation of mechanisms underlying the health disparities observed in our local communities and more globally. The scope of responsibility for the PEMFC includes: 1) maintaining and providing access to adult and pediatric health assessments that include self-reports, observational data, and performance based measures; 2) assisting Center Members with rigorous and appropriate protocols to use when applying such measures in research studies; 3) advising on data analysis that includes psychometric analyses including the use of multiple phenotypes in a phenomic or true multivariate analysis; and 5) integrating environmental health with precision medicine initiatives at Mount Sinai. The PEMFC curates measures identified by our expert faculty together with the information needed to implement the measures including a summary of the psychometrics and detailed protocol(s) for data collection, scoring procedures, and incorporation into analyses. PEMFC faculty have particular expertise to guide selection of measures that can be characterized through a common standardized metric in order to facilitate data sharing, interoperability and harmonization to catalyze opportunities for Center Members to participate in collaborative multi-site studies. PEMFC faculty will also work with our clinical colleagues to integrate environmental health data with electronic health record data to catalyze environmental health translational research across the Mount Sinai Health System.
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