$6 million in funding to aid Johns Hopkins research on childhood asthma

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recently awarded $6 million in funding to the Johns Hopkins Center for the Study of Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment.

“We have no greater resource than our children, and the fact that so many people are coming together from so many different city, state and federal agencies to support children’s health initiatives underscores the importance of efforts to keep kids healthy,” U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) said. “I strongly applaud today’s announcement of a $6 million EPA/NIEHS grant to Johns Hopkins for children’s health research and pledge to continue working to identify additional resources to fund even more groundbreaking work at Maryland institutions.”

Researchers at the center will use the $6 million to study asthma susceptibility factors in area children, and use that information to determine interventions that could improve the health of at-risk children.

“This work by Johns Hopkins continues a long, highly valued history of research assisting EPA and NIEHS in studying environmental challenges, to identify and implement effective approaches to mitigate the impacts to children’s health,” EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin said. “The funding ... will build on this legacy by providing cutting-edge research and greater awareness in understanding how a range of environmental factors can affect children, and more importantly, give us the best science to improve the health of Baltimore’s most vulnerable citizens.”

The EPA and NIEHS announced a total of $28 million for Children’s Environmental health and Disease Prevention Research Centers in 2016.