External Exposome and Environmental Health Talk at the 2025 PPHS Research Symposium at Keck SOM @ USC

The External Exposome and Environmental Health: Exposures and Context Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, PhD Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences Environmental Health Division Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California [email protected] 2 Marybel Robledo Gonzalez, PhD Assistant Professor The Ohio State University College of Medicine People are embedded in multiple contexts and at various levels! Gonzalez, M., Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Linares, D., Wonnum, S., Bagot, K., White, E., Cuan, A., DiMatteo, S., Akiel, Y., Lindsley, P., Harris, J., Perez-Amparan, E., Powell, T., Latino de City Heights (COLCH), C. O., Dowling, G., Alkire, D., Thompson, W., & Murray, T. (2025). Responsible research in health disparities using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM (ABCD) study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 71, 101497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101497 Slide courtesy of Megan Herting A Geographic Approach to Health: Location, Place, and Context Geospatial Technology for Human Well-Being and Health. Springer International Publishing AG; 2022:C1-C1. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-71377-5_21 Slide courtesy of Megan Herting Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Burnor, E., Herting, M.M. Neurotoxicants, the developmental brain, and mental health. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science. (In Press) Megan Herting, PhD Associate Professor Keck School of Medicine, USC The exposome is predominant in all cause mortality and in liver, lung, kidney, heart disease, and some cancers. Even in those that appear to have a greater genetic composition there is still significant space for the exposome. Let’s take a step back….to the genome! What is the exposome? Exposomean integrated compilation of all physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial influences that "impact biology." (Miller 2025). • In contrast to the “genome” •Initially, broadly consisted of chemical and physical exposures Exposomics (operational definition): a field that studies the comprehensive and cumulative effects of physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial influences that impact biological systems by integrating data from a variety of interdisciplinary methodologies and streams, to enable discovery-based analysis of environmental influences on health. Petit, P., & Vuillerme, N. (2025). Global research trends on the human exposome: A bibliometric analysis (2005–2024). Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 32(13), 7808–7833. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-025-36197-7 The exposome now…. Envirome/Environome Public health exposome Eco-exposome Endo-exposome Adductome Plasma exposome Blood exposome Serum exposome Chemical exposome Mineral exposome Infectome Pollutome Social exposome/Socio-exposome Digital exposome Occupational /Working life exposome Spectrosome Farming /Agricultural exposome Urbanome/Urban exposome Locusome Space exposome Pregnancy exposome Gero-exposome Psychoexposome Gastrointestinal exposome AD exposome Neural exposome Skin exposome From Petit and Vuillerme, 2025. More than 200 –omes! Rima Habre, ScD Geo Sciences Hub co-lead NEXUS MPI Yan Xu, PhD Arcot Rajasekar, PhD Geo Sciences Hub co-lead Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, PhD The GeoNEXUS Team! John Wilson, PhD USC Spatial Sciences Institute Some examples of the external exposome. Building the Adolescent Neural Urbanome At some point, we wanted to develop a framework that incorporated social and structural contexts. Our contribution to the -omes… • From “the exposome”, • Now, “socio-exposome,” considering broader social, psychological, and environmental factors. • ”Urbanome,” also focused on complex dynamics that are more likely to emerge in urban settings (i.e., traffic patterns, infrastructure) Petit and Vuillerme, 2025. The Adolescent Neural Urbanome! Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Schachner, J. N., Ip, K. I., Schertz, K. E., Gonzalez, M. R., Abad, S., & Herting, M. M. (2024). Building Towards an Adolescent Neural Urbanome: Expanding Environmental Measures using Linked External Data (LED) in the ABCD Study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 101338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101338 Withinand betweenstudy site variations in ambient air pollution exposure at ages 9-10 years in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study Characterizing unequal distribution of air pollution exposures in the US Latinx and Black neighborhoods are exposed to more air pollutants. Cardenas-Iniguez, C., de Jesus, A., Schachner, J., Abad, S., Ahmadi, H., Schwartz, J., Sukumaran, K., Hackman, D., Chen, J.-C., & Herting, M. (2025). Withinand between-study site variations in ambient air pollution exposure at ages 9-10 years in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/4c3wf_v1 Reliable patterns between subcortical volumes and air pollution exposure. Sukumaran, K., Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Burnor, E., Bottenhorn, K. L., Hackman, D. A., McConnell, R., Berhane, K., Schwartz, J., Chen, J.-C., & Herting, M. M. (2023). Ambient fine particulate exposure and subcortical gray matter microarchitecture in 9and 10-year-old children across the United States. iScience, 26(3), 106087. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106087 Megan Herting, PhD Associate Professor Keck School of Medicine, USC Max Aung, PhD Assistant Professor Keck School of Medicine, USC Air pollution, community-level social and neighborhood factors, and depression and anxiety in children of US-born and immigrant parents Talat Islam, PhD Assistant Professor of Research Population and Public Health Sciences Person-Centered Social Determinants and Neighborhood-Level Deprivation Associated With Disability in Hispanic People With Multiple Sclerosis Amezcua, Lilyana ; Cardenas-Iniguez, Carlos ; Orlando, Christopher ; Martinez, Andrea ; Nahar, Iffat ; Delgado, Silvia R. ; Manrique, Clara Patricia ; Vicente, Ivonne ; Chinea, Angel ; McCauley, Jacob L. ; Islam, Khandaker Talat S Lilyana Amezcua, MD Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology 25 Marybel Robledo Gonzalez, PhD Assistant Professor The Ohio State University Development of a Latinx Structural Racism Index for the US Paris Adkins-Jackson, PhD Assistant Professor Columbia University Using historical data in the following domains: •Home ownership •Educational Segregation •Occupation Segregation and Bias •Media Coverage •Labor and Immigration Policies