Impact of household air pollution (HAP) in-utero through early childhood on child neurocognitive development from infancy to 8 years (HAPCOG Study)

The HAPCOG Study—Impact of household air pollution (HAP) in-utero through early childhood on child neurocognitive development from infancy to 8 years—is focuses on neurodevelopmental assessment and global child health research. Building on in this field, the HAPCOG Study is positioned to examine how exposure to household air pollution beginning in utero and continuing through the early childhood years may shape cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial development up to age eight.

The study aims to track children from infancy into the early school years to characterize developmental trajectories, identify sensitive windows of vulnerability, and inform prevention and remediation strategies. Given Dr. Boivin’s history of conducting multi-site, cross-national research and serving as protocol chair on NIH-sponsored multi-site clinical evaluations, HAPCOG is designed to incorporate rigorous, standardized neurocognitive assessment methods that are sensitive to cultural and contextual considerations and feasible for use in communities with limited resources. The project emphasizes capacity building and mentorship; similarly, HAPCOG is expected to include training components that strengthen local assessment, data collection, and analytic capacity. While HAPCOG’s core focus is on exposure timing—spanning in utero through eight years of age—the study situates household air pollution among other coexisting environmental and biological risks.

The study will contextualize HAP exposure within broader determinants of child development to better parse direct and indirect pathways to cognitive and behavioral outcomes. The project’s outputs are intended to inform public health interventions, caregiver support programs, and policy measures aimed at reducing early-life exposures and supporting affected children’s developmental potential. By combining longitudinal developmental surveillance with culturally validated neuropsychological evaluation and an emphasis on training and partnership, HAPCOG seeks to generate actionable evidence on how household air pollution across the earliest phases of life influences neurodevelopmental trajectories through age eight, under the leadership of an investigator with a proven track record in global child neurodevelopment research.