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PUBLIC HEALTH Bloom Opens Yearlong Series on Future Of Global Public Health First Symposium Addresses Early Childhood Development Around the World Researchers are finding in-creasing evidence that early childhood exposures become hardwired during fetal development—like diseases programmed into our DNA—leading to long-term health risks and higher mortality. Small, thin baby boys and short baby girls have an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, Type II diabetes mellitus, and osteoporosis, said David Barker at the April 13 HSPH Millennial Symposium, "Early Life Determinants of Health and Well-being: The Importance of Early Childhood for Global Public Health." Barker is director of the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton, U.K., and one of three panelists invited to present recent findings. Exposed at a time of heightened developmental plasticity, the fetus adapts to the nutrient supply it receives in utero, Barker said. Patterns suggest that the infant's ability to effectively metabolize sugar goes down as the mother's body mass goes down. Children born during the time of the Dutch famine in 1945, for example, have been found to have difficulties handling their cholesterol, glucose, and fat in later life. Barker emphasized that this information should be used to motivate efforts to improve the health of poor and young mothers. The symposium, convened by HSPH dean Barry Bloom and sponsored by the Department of Maternal and Child Health, was the first in a yearlong series of 10 events addressing the future of public health. Panelist Barbara Wolfe, director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Wisconsin, discussed the health consequences of the rise in births to unwed mothers in the U.S.; and David Olds, director of the Kempe Prevention Research Center at the University of Colorado, presented his work showing the benefits of nurse home-visits on the health and well-being of the developing child. —Catherine Chu