UC Merced Magazine | Volume XVIII, Issue IV

The joint project launched this fall. The Child and Family Development group will have access to the intervention project's data, and also added some of its own questions to be answered on topics such as language development, cognitive development and family dynamics. The research group will video record parent-child interactions quarterly during the home visits. “We will be able to go back and review these video observations and look for all kinds of different things such as how often the parent is directing the child's attention to different toys, whether the parent is expressing different kinds of emotion, how the parent is reacting to the child's emotions — areas we study in our lab but we often have trouble getting enough people in the community to be able to come to the lab,” Main said. The joint project allows the researchers to study these markers in the home and build partnerships with people working with local families who might be willing to participate in other studies. If your family would like to participate in the Parents as Teachers Intervention Project or you are interested in learning more about the program, contact Monica Adrian at MAdrian@mcoe.org or Main at amain@ucmerced.edu. Can Air Clean Itself? Central Valley residents are all too familiar with the impacts that poor air quality has on health. UC Merced Department of Life and Environmental Sciences Professor Xuan Zhang and colleagues have found a way to better predict what’s happening in the atmosphere: a new mechanism by which isoprene — the hydrocarbon emitted by plants — is photochemically oxidized, producing ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), two essential ingredients in smoggy air pollution. Because of the planet's vegetation, isoprene is the most abundantly produced biogenic volatile organic compound on Earth. It is not harmful by itself, but its degradation in polluted air has been widely studied. However, there have been very few studies on isoprene’s oxidation in the presence of less pollution.

“The major difference lies in the amount of ozone and PM2.5 that isoprene photooxidation is responsible for,” Zhang said. “Our mechanism suggests that isoprene contributes to less ozone but more PM2.5 than traditionally thought.” Research has clearly established that particle pollution and ozone threaten human health at all stages of life, including the risk of premature birth, metabolic disorders, susceptibility to infections, causing or worsening lung and heart disease and increasing the risk of heart attacks or strokes, according to the American Lung Association. Climate Change Harming Health Even Before Birth According to the World Health Organization, climate change is the biggest public health threat of the 21st century. Professor Sandie Ha has conducted research that explores the nexus between climate change and perinatal health, especially in underserved populations. “My research suggests that climate change exposures such as extreme temperatures and pollution increase the risk of multiple health concerns during pregnancy and early life,” said Ha. “These include preterm birth, pregnancy loss, restricted fetal growth and delayed development in babies.” In the San Joaquin Valley, residents face severe impacts of climate change related to hazards including wildfires, extreme temperatures and drought. While these exposures are known to cause health concerns, Ha said research on how they impact perinatal health in the region is scarce and the result is limited intervention made worse by already limited healthcare access and resources for mitigation and adaptation. Ha’s latest project investigates how environmental risk factors, such as air pollution and wildfires, affect the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including low birthweight, preterm birth and neonatal/infant death. “My research helps us further understand the full extent of climate-change health impacts and inform policies and interventions with health implications, especially among underserved communities,” she said.

Home Visit Project Benefits Families and Researchers The Child and Family Development research group in the Department of Psychological Sciences at UC Merced is partnering with the Parents as Teachers Intervention Project to help families reduce stress and to learn about child development in the Merced community at the same time. The intervention project is overseen by the Merced County Office of Education and the Merced County Department of Public Health and offers parents of children through 5 years old home visits on a regular basis over the course of two years. collecting data about the effectiveness of their interventions,” said psychology Professor Alexandra Main. “They are getting assessments of stress reduction and parental mental health over several different time points. That's a lot of data, and they would like to share it with their stakeholders.” The Child and Family Development group was already on the project’s advisory board and Main is now serving as the principal investigator on the formal research agreement, in collaboration with professors Eric Walle, Heather Bortfeld, Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook and Elif Isbell, making it a project that spans multiple labs and addressing many different facets of child development and family dynamics. “The intervention program is not a research organization, but they are

Child and Family Development researchers include, from left, professors Jeffrey Gilger, Eric Walle, Rose Scott and Alex Main.

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