POD Center NewsletterJanuary 2025
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Perinatal Origin of Disparities (POD) Center Seminar Series 2025
Please join us as we host three guest speakers for a virtual seminar series this winter and spring quarter!
Our guest speakers will share their expertise and research centering various topics related to perinatal health that align with the POD Center’s mission. We will cover research topics such as:
- Environmental health inequities
- Social stressors
- Epigenetic mechanisms
- Primary care-based interventions to prevent obesity in low-income Latino children
- Mechanisms of endometrial renewal and embryo implantation
We look forward to offering valuable insights and fostering meaningful interdisciplinary discussions through this series!
If interested in attending, please reach out to POD Center Coordinator, Jasmine Cuellar at jmcuellar@ucdavis.edu.
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Funder(s): National Institutes of Health (NIH)
United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Amount: Upper $500,000
Details: This initiative will support intervention research that addresses structural racism and discrimination (SRD) in order to improve minority health or reduce health disparities.
Application Deadline: October 9, 2025
Funder(s): National Institutes of Health (NIH)
United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Amount: Upper $840,000
Details: The NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) and participating NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) invite institutional career development award applications for Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Career Development Programs, hereafter termed "Programs". Programs will support mentored research career development of junior faculty members, known as BIRCWH Scholars, who have recently completed clinical training or postdoctoral fellowships, and who will be engaged in interdisciplinary basic, translational, data science, behavioral, clinical, and/or health services research relevant to the health of women and, where appropriate, the use of both sexes to better understand the influence of sex as a biological variable on health and disease.
This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) allows appointment of Scholars (K12) proposing to serve as the lead investigator of an independent clinical trial; or proposing a separate ancillary clinical trial; or proposing to gain research experience in a clinical trial led by another investigator, as part of their research and career development.
Application Deadline: May 28, 2026
Amount: The number of awards is contingent upon NIH appropriations.
Details: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hereby notify Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) (PD(s)/PI(s)) whose research is supported by specific types of research grants (activity codes listed above) that funds are available for administrative supplements to enhance the diversity of the research workforce by recruiting, mentoring, and supporting high school, undergraduate and graduate/clinical students, postbaccalaureate and post Masters individuals, postdoctoral researchers (including health professionals), and eligible investigators from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups that have been shown to be underrepresented in health-related research. This supplement opportunity is also available to support PD(s)/PI(s) of research grants who are or become disabled and need additional support to accommodate their disability in order to continue to work on the research project. The activities proposed in the supplement application must fall within the scope of the parent grant, and simultaneously advance the objectives of the parent grant and support the research training and professional development of the supplement candidate.
This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is designed specifically for applicants proposing research that does not involve leading an independent clinical trial, a clinical trial feasibility study, or an ancillary clinical trial. Applicants to this NOFO are permitted to propose research experience in a clinical trial led by a mentor or co-mentor.
Application Deadline: May 7, 2026
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Recent Publications by POD Center
Affiliate Faculty & Trainees
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November 2024
Karvonen, K. L., Smith, O., Chambers-Butcher, B., Afulani, P., Mathis-Perry, T., Rangwalla, K., McLemore, M., & Rogers, E. E. (2024). Audio-diary reflections after community focus groups to address local racial inequities in the neonatal intensive care unit. Journal of Perinatology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-024-02176-y
Hedderson, M. M., Schuh, H. B., Knapp, E. A., Bekelman, T. A., Catellier, D. J., Westlake, M., Lyall, K., Schmidt, R. J., Dunlop, A. L., Comstock, S. S., Chatzi, L., Sauder, K. A., Dabelea, D., Switkowski, K. M., Lin, P.-I. D., Avalos, L. A., Zhu, Y., Ferrara, A., & ECHO Cohort Consortium. (2024). Prenatal diet and infant growth from birth to age 24 months. JAMA Network Open, 7(11), e2445771. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.45771
Miller, R. L., Wang, Y., Aalborg, J., Alshawabkeh, A. N., Bennett, D. H., Breton, C. V., Buckley, J. P., Dabelea, D., Dunlop, A. L., Ferrara, A., Gao, G., Gaylord, A., Gold, D. R., Hartert, T., Hertz-Picciotto, I., Hoepner, L. A., Karagas, M., Karr, C. J., Kelly, R. S., … ECHO Cohort Consortium. (2024). Prenatal exposure to environmental bisphenols over time and their association with childhood asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis in the ECHO consortium. Environmental Pollution, 366, 125415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2024.125415
December 2024
Bitler, M. P., Hoynes, H., & Kuka, E. (2024). The macroeconomy and poverty. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 711(1), 82–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162241289722
Brown, S. D., Garcia, B. L., Ritchie, J. L., Tsai, A.-L., Millman, A., Greenberg, M., Quesenberry, C. P., & Ferrara, A. (2024). Digital health outreach to promote postpartum screening after gestational diabetes: A randomized factorial pilot study. PEC Innovation, 4, 100256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecinn.2024.100256
Choi, G., Xun, X., Bennett, D. H., Meeker, J. D., Morello-Frosch, R., Sathyanarayana, S., Schantz, S. L., Trasande, L., Watkins, D., Pellizzari, E. D., Li, W., Kannan, K., Woodruff, T. J., Buckley, J. P., & ECHO Cohort Consortium. (2024). Associations of prenatal urinary melamine, melamine analogues, and aromatic amines with gestational duration and fetal growth in the ECHO Cohort. Environment International, 195, 109227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2024.109227
Goodrich, A. J., Tancredi, D. J., Ludeña, Y. J., Bennett, D. H., Hertz-Picciotto, I., & Schmidt, R. J. (2024). Professionally and non-professionally applied household insecticides during pregnancy and early life and their associations with autism spectrum disorder and developmental delay in the CHARGE case-control study. Environmental Research, 267, 120651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.120651
Movsisyan Vernon, A. S., Fejerman, L., Hoch, J. S., & Keegan, T. H. (2024). Stage at diagnosis and cancer-specific survival for stomach, lung, colorectal, and bladder cancers among Armenians in California. Preventive Medicine, 191, 108214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2024.108214
Noor, S., Mori‐Fegan, D. K., Wong, Y. Y., Wu, C., Roman, R. J., Taha, A. Y., Swardfager, W., & Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. (2024). Associations between CYP4F2 missense variant rs3093105 A>C and Alzheimer’s disease phenotypes. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 20(S8). https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.095286
Parenti, M., Shoff, S., Sotelo-Orozco, J., Hertz-Picciotto, I., & Slupsky, C. M. (2024). Metabolomics of mothers of children with autism, idiopathic developmental delay, and Down syndrome. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 31981. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83587-x
Sridhar, S. B., Ferrara, A., Brown, S. D., Quesenberry, C. P., Xu, F., Liu, E., Sedgwick, T., Kissel, P., Serrato Bandera, H. D., Albright, C., & Hedderson, M. M. (2024). Protocol of an adaptive mobile health intervention for the management of gestational weight gain: The LEAP cluster randomized controlled trial. Contemporary Clinical Trials, 149, 107781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2024.107781
Volk, H. E., Ames, J. L., Chen, A., Fallin, M. D., Hertz-Picciotto, I., Halladay, A., Hirtz, D., Lavin, A., Ritz, B., Zoeller, T., & Swanson, M. (2022). Considering toxic chemicals in the etiology of autism. Pediatrics, 149(1). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-053012
January 2025
Avila, M. N., Jung, S., Satterstrom, F. K., Fu, J. M., Levy, T., Sloofman, L. G., Klei, L., Pichardo, T., Stevens, C. R., Cusick, C. M., Ames, J. L., Campos, G. S., Cerros, H., Chaskel, R., Costa, C. I. S., Cuccaro, M. L., Lopez, A. del P., Fernandez, M., Ferro, E., Schmidt, R.J., Hertz-Picciotto, I., … Buxbaum, J. D. (2025). Deleterious coding variation associated with autism is consistent across populations, as exemplified by admixed Latin American populations. MedRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.27.24319460
Badley, J. R., Bhusal, A., & Lein, P. J. (2025). A primary rat neuron-astrocyte-microglia tri-culture model for studying mechanisms of neurotoxicity. Frontiers in Toxicology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/ftox.2024.1523387
Choi, J. W., Oh, J., Bennett, D. H., Kannan, K., Tancredi, D. J., Miller, M., Schmidt, R. J., & Shin, H.-M. (2025). Corrigendum to ‘Gestational exposure to organophosphate esters and autism spectrum disorder and other non-typical development in a cohort with elevated familial likelihood’ [Environ. Res. 263 (2024) 120141]. Environmental Research, 265, 120492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2024.120492
Ercumen, A., Mertens, A. N., Butzin-Dozier, Z., Jung, D. K., Ali, S., Achando, B. S., Rao, G., Hemlock, C., Pickering, A. J., Stewart, C. P., Tan, S. T., Grembi, J. A., Benjamin-Chung, J., Wolfe, M., Ho, G. G., Rahman, M. Z., Arnold, C. D., Dentz, H. N., Njenga, S. M., … Lin, A. (2025). Water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutritional interventions can reduce child antibiotic use: evidence from Bangladesh and Kenya. Nature Communications, 16(1), 556. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55801-x
Kelly, N. R., Kosty, D., Bodovski, Y., Blackwell, C. K., Ganiban, J. M., Neiderhiser, J. M., Dabelea, D., Gilbert-Diamond, D., Aschner, J. L., Bastain, T. M., Breton, C. V., Bush, N. R., Calub, C. A., Camargo, C. A., Camerota, M., Croen, L. A., Elliott, A. J., Enlow, M. B., Ferrara, A., Schmidt, R.J., … program collaborators for Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes. (2025). Children’s executive functioning and health behaviors across pediatric life stages and ecological contexts. Journal of Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-024-00543-w
Kim, Y.-T., Huang, Y.-P., Ozturk, G., Hahn, J., Taha, A. Y., Wang, A., Barile, D., & Mills, D. A. (2025). Characterization of Bifidobacterium bifidum growth and metabolism on whey protein phospholipid concentrate. Journal of Dairy Science. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2024-25885
Lyall, K., Dickerson, A. S., Green, A. M., Frndak, S., Croen, L. A., Ames, J. L., Avalos, L. A., Aschner, J. L., Bush, N. R., Camargo, C. A., D’Sa, V., Dager, S. R., Dunlop, A. L., Ferrara, A., Ganiban, J. M., Gern, J. E., Gissandaner, T. D., Graff, J. C., Hertz-Picciotto, I., Schmidt, R.J., … program collaborators for Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes. (2025). Demographic correlates of autism: how do associations compare between diagnosis and a quantitative trait measure? Autism Research : Official Journal of the International Society for Autism Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3296
Snyder, M., Miles, M., Hertz-Picciotto, I., & Conlon, K. C. (2025). Household needs among wildfire survivors in the 2017 Northern California wildfires. Environmental Research, Health: ERH, 3(1), 015008. https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5309/ad951c
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Partner Events and Publications
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Upcoming Events
Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) 2025 Pregnancy Meeting (January 27-February 1, 2025)
The Pregnancy Meeting is the centerpiece of SMFM’s work, featuring postgraduate courses and workshops, luncheon roundtables, scientific forums, oral and poster presentations, industry learning, exhibits, and more. The meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest research and advancements in obstetrics and an invaluable opportunity to learn from leaders in the field while making new connections. If you are committed to improving maternal health outcomes, the Pregnancy Meeting is for you!
2025 Maternal Mental Health FORUM (March 18-19, 2025)
You won’t want to miss the 2025 Maternal Mental Health (MMH) FORUM, where cross-sector change, agents will gather to drive change in maternal mental health. Together with Policymakers, Payors, Provider Leaders, and our Partners, we will discuss progress, roadblocks, and solutions to closing gaps in maternal mental health care.
The PSI Annual PSI Conference provides an opportunity to meet, learn together and share ideas with others involved in the field of Perinatal Mental Health. The 2025 Conference is scheduled July 9-13, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Pre-conference training will be held July 9-10, 2025. Sign up here to keep up to date on conference planning.
Sign up for more information here.
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Partner Publications
The Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance (MMHLA) provides a monthly breakdown of how they drove progress in maternal mental health. Their small but mighty team — 5 full-time and 5 part-time staff members — accomplished so much last year, including helping to pass the first-ever legislation addressing maternal mental health for military mothers!
Check out their Year in Review for monthly snapshots with pictures, fun facts, and insights into what they did and where they went to continue improving maternal mental health in 2024.
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An experimental gene therapy that boosts production of a growth factor in the placenta restores fetal weight in a guinea pig model of fetal growth restriction—a pregnancy complication that can lead to preterm birth and stillbirth. The study, funded by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), provides a potential way to treat the condition during the latter half of pregnancy. The work is led by Helen N. Jones, Ph.D., at the University of Florida, and is part of NICHD’s Human Placenta Project.
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Analysis of children’s movements could play a role in identifying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) early, suggests a small study conducted by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Using deep learning, artificial intelligence methods to analyze the path of arm movement (trajectories) during an object-sorting task, NICHD researchers were able to distinguish a high proportion of children with ASD from typically developing children and from neurotypical adults.
The study was conducted by Amir Gandjbackhche, Ph.D., of the NICHD Section on Translational Biophotonics, and Anjana Bhat, Ph.D., at the University of Delaware. It appears in Scientific Reports.
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