Oral

Biospecimens such as blood, urine, hair, cord blood, and placental tissues, that are linked to phenotypic data (e.g., exposures, behaviors, medical and reproductive history, etc.), can vastly enrich our understanding of what is happening and why during various time points throughout pregnancy, and is critically important for understanding both normal and abnormal pregnancy outcomes. But gathering these specimens and data depends upon close collaboration with the community and the women who are contributing to the repository. It is imperative that we engage these communities and build trust with the women who are participating—very much like community public health engagement. While the primary purpose of these types of repositories is to support basic and translational science, the epidemiological data collected can be a rich resource for state public health departments and provide insights far beyond what is gleaned through other state surveys or hospital discharge data. This panel will explore the opportunities of research repositories for the basic, translational, and epidemiological sciences. This panel will explore the opportunities and risks of collecting data and specimens from pregnant women to support basic and translational research aimed at improving maternal, fetal, newborn, and child health outcomes. We will discuss how pregnancy-related biobanks are being developed, the ethical issues that have emerged, and what is being done to engage communities around these efforts. The GAPPS Repository Network includes hospitals in Washington and California that are enrolling pregnant women at their first prenatal visit and following them throughout their pregnancy and postpartum period. GAPPS also is leading global harmonization efforts to standardize these types of collections across studies in low-, medium-, and high-resource settings.

Session Objectives: Define what is meant by a pregnancy-related biobank Explain what we are doing to harmonize collections across studies and settings Discuss the logistical, ethical, and community issues of biobanking tissues and data collected during pregnancy Identify opportunities to enrich state public health data on pregnancy and outcomes through data collected for biobanks Explore opportunities to link statewide data sets with biobank data set (e.g., newborn screening, First Steps, Medicaid, etc.)

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)