Edwina Ho Yee Yeung, Ph.D.

Our research focuses on reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology, with an emphasis on the developmental origins of health and disease. We study how factors before conception, during fertility treatment, and throughout pregnancy may affect children’s growth, development, cardiovascular health, metabolism, and long-term well-being. Much of our work uses the Upstate KIDS Study and other large research collaborations to understand whether infertility, fertility treatments, parental age, maternal health conditions, and early-life biological changes are linked to health outcomes in children.

Our research provides generally reassuring evidence about the long-term health of children conceived with fertility treatment. In the Upstate KIDS cohort, we found that children conceived by fertility treatment generally had similar neurodevelopment, behaviors, growth and blood pressure in middle childhood compared with children conceived without treatment. At the same time, our research continues to investigate potential biological pathways, including differences in DNA methylation associated with early exposures and with older maternal age. our work shows that fertility treatment and older maternal age may be linked to small differences in DNA methylation, a biological process that helps regulate gene activity. We also examine maternal conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome and their implications for cardiometabolic health in both mothers and children. Overall, our goal is to identify early factors that may shape health and to provide evidence that can guide clinical counseling, prevention, and public health recommendations.

Edwina Yeung, Ph.D., is a Senior Investigator in the Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Population Health Research, Division of Intramural Research, at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. She is a perinatal and pediatric epidemiologist whose research centers on the developmental origins of health and disease. Dr. Yeung has published more than 180 peer-reviewed studies and has led research integrating epidemiologic cohorts, clinical measures, biomarkers, epigenomics, and collaborative consortia to examine how early-life exposures influence health across childhood. Her recent work has addressed the health of children conceived with fertility treatments, including cardiometabolic outcomes, blood pressure, growth, and DNA methylation; intergenerational implications of maternal PCOS; and the relationship between parental age and offspring epigenetic patterns. Through studies such as Upstate KIDS and collaborations with international research consortia, Dr. Yeung’s research provides evidence to improving health for individuals planning pregnancy, infants, and children, with a focus on identifying early opportunities for prevention and intervention. Dr. Yeung earned her Doctoral degree in Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. She first joined the Epidemiology Branch in 2008 as a postdoctoral fellow and became a tenure-track investigator in 2011 and a Senior Investigator in 2018. She currently serves as the principal investigator for the Upstate KIDS and SPAN studies.