Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Today, a look at why federal funding is key to research efforts through the eyes of two Johns Hopkins

researchers who've helped build mountains of data about genetic and environmental factors in autism.

Stephanie Desmond talks to Chris Lattacosta and Heather Volk about how they are on the precipice

of making discoveries that can improve the lives of those with autism and how important

NIH grants are to getting there. Let's listen. Heather Volk and Chris Ladd Acosta, thanks so much for

joining me. Thanks, Stephanie. We're excited to be here today. Thanks for having us, Stephanie. Of course.

And today I'd like to talk to you about the autism study that Johns Hopkins University

is part of, that you two are leading. Chris, can you tell me a little bit about it? Sure. The main goal

of our study is really to understand how both genes and the environment come together to influence

autism diagnostic symptoms, social communication and

behaviors, other kinds of mental and physical health conditions as well that individuals with

autism experience much more often than others.

And when we're talking about environment, when I use that term, we're really talking about lots of different

aspects of our lives, everything from the neighborhoods we live in and what the sort of

clean space or air quality might look like there to chemical kinds of exposures or chemicals

that are in our everyday kind of household products to pregnancy conditions and even diet

and different nutrients that we take in every day. There, could you just quickly tell me a little

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