skip to Main Content
HHRA board chair Dr. David Haas is also the Principal Investigator at Heartland Study partner hospital Indiana University School of Medicine.

Archived HHRA News Posts
  • Dr. Kimberly Yolton joins HHRA board

    Dr. Yolton is a developmental psychologist and epidemiologist serving as Professor of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Her interests include exposures and experiences that may alter a child’s developmental trajectory from infancy through adolescence. She collaborates on research projects on typical child development as well as those focused on the impact of exposures to environmental toxicants, opiates and stress during early development.

  • Paul Hartnett, HHRA’s Executive Director

      Paul Hartnett has served as HHRA’s CFO since our founding . With the departure of Russell King, Paul has now joined the board and Executive Director. We thank Russell for his service and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

  • Heartland Study Enrolls 1,000th Mother-Infant Pair

    July 19, 2024 – In June of this year, the Heartland Study achieved a major milestone, enrolling its 1,000th mother-infant pair. Enrollment is now at 50% of goal. The objective of the Study is to help fill major gaps in our understanding of the impacts of herbicides on maternal and infant health. Currently in Phase 1, the Study is focused on evaluating associations between herbicide concentrations in body fluids and tissue samples from pregnant women and infants, and pregnancy/childbirth outcomes. Phase 2 is designed to evaluate potential associations between herbicide biomarkers and early childhood neurological development. Much appreciation for the mothers enrolled, and the entire Heartland Study Team including scientists, support staff and clinicians for this tremendous achievement, and for our funders to making this work possible. Read more about the study including peer-reviewed studies published in Chemosphere and Agrichemicals at our publications  page. The investment required to conduct this study exceeds $1 million each year. You can support this important work by making a donation here.

  • HHRA’s 2023 Annual Report

    Last year was a year of progress for the HHRA and the Heartland Study. Read about it here!  

  • Supporting HHRA and the Heartland Study Through Donor-Advised Funds

    An increasingly popular way to manage charitable giving is by donating cash, securities, or other assets into a donor-advised fund (DAF), from which you will receive an immediate tax deduction. From this, donors can recommend grants to IRS-qualified nonprofit organizations.  DAFs are one of the easiest and most tax-advantageous ways to “grow” resources earmarked for future charitable giving.  The HHRA is an IRS-qualified organization, and we encourage you to use your DAF, if you have one, to support our mission. You can find three simple steps to supporting our research via your DAF here.  Simple and convenient, your DAF can have genuine effects on the health of mothers, babies, and future generations.  Thank you!

The Heartland Study is Featured by IU School of Medicine

by Rachel Benbrook | May 20th, 2021
by Rachel Benbrook | May 20th, 2021
HHRA board chair Dr. David Haas is also the Principal Investigator at Heartland Study partner hospital Indiana University School of Medicine.

HHRA’s flagship project The Heartland Study was featured in a new blog on the Indiana University School of Medicine’s website this week.

IU is one of our hospital partners that is recruiting moms-to-be into this clinical research that will measure herbicide exposure in women and track pregnancy outcomes and the health and development of their baby until age 3.  The IU team has been hard at work, and have already enrolled 100 women – the first Heartland Study partner to reach this milestone!

Dr. David Haas is the vice chair of research for the School of Medicine’s OB-GYN department and IU’s principal investigator for the study. He also happens to be the chair of the HHRA board, and we are lucky to have his expertise guiding our research.

Dr. Haas comments in the blog post that Indiana is “a very agriculturally heavy state that uses a lot of these chemicals, so it’s important to recruit people who are not just in rural areas, because these chemicals can get into the water or affect air quality in all parts of the state.”

Congrats to the IU team for reaching 100 Heartland Study enrollees, and as always a huge thank you to all the mothers-to-be that have agreed to help doctors learn more about how herbicide exposure may be impacting the health of moms and babies in the Heartland.

Back To Top