Organophosphate (OP) and pyrethroid (PYR) pesticides are widely used in China. However, few studies have investigated the neurobehavioral outcomes of Chinese children exposed to low levels of OP and PYR. We investigated urinary metabolite levels and their association with exposure characteristics and the neurobehavior of children. For all children, biomarker measurements were made in the same interval relative to neurobehavioral testing. We analyzed the morning urine samples of 406 children aged 3-6 years from Nanjing, China. The Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to identify the associations between urinary metabolite levels and exposure characteristics. Multiple linear regression models were used to test the associations between urinary metabolite levels and neurobehavioral test scores after adjusting for covariates (e.g., sex, age, and education expense). The detection of 3,5,6-trichloropyridinol (TCP) and 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) in the urine was positively associated with living areas adjacent to agricultural fields and using indoor mosquito repellent incense. These two metabolites were negatively associated with the soaking time of fruits and vegetables. When treated as dichotomous variables, TCP was significantly associated with arithmetic test scores in adjusted models, and 3-PBA was significantly associated with the scores on the Chinese Binet and arithmetic tests. When treated as a continuous variable, higher urinary 3-PBA levels were significantly associated with lower cancellation test scores. Our findings suggest that exposure to organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides may have a significant impact on children's working memory and verbal comprehension.

This research aimed to identify risk factors including individual characteristics and environment circumstances related to different types of school bullying (physical, relational, verbal, sexual, and possession bullying) among middle school students in China. Cases were the respondents reporting perpetrating bullying behaviors three or more times in the past year. One control was selected for each case from those participants who were not involved in school bullying in the past 12 months. Data were collected between April 2019 and May 2019 in China. After considering potential confounding variables including gender, grade level, and school, multivariable conditional logistic regression analysis was performed based on the univariate logistic analysis including 1,594 adolescents. According to conditional logistic regression analysis, alcohol use and lack of emotional management and control were the significant individual characteristics positively associated with involvement in school bullying. Alcohol use was related to all five types of school bullying perpetration. Poor relationships between family members, father’s alcohol use, and parental neglect were strong risk factors for relational bullying. Lack of a sense of safety and absence of trusted people were associated with physical, relational, and verbal bullying perpetration. Results of this study provide evidence about risk factors for school bullying and have implications for potential policies to reduce bullying. Effective policies and programs need to take individual characteristics (social-emotional skills, anger control), family (parent training in conflict resolution, appropriate disciplining), peer and school factors (promoting prosocial networks, zero tolerance for bullying, appropriate disciplining policies against students who bully others, teacher training on building positive teacher–student relationships and positive discipling techniques) into consideration in order to develop effective prevention programs.

There has been a significant amount of research on correlates of bullying victimization, but most prior studies are descriptive and do not distinguish between different types of bullying. The current study used a case-control study design to explore factors related to different types of bullying victimization, including physical, relational, verbal, sexual, property, and poly-bullying victimization. This study was conducted in a southern city in China, including 3054 cases who self-reported being victims of school bullying and 3054 controls who reported not being involved in any school bullying in the past 12 months. Each victim case was matched with a control on gender, school, and grade level. Univariate logistic analyses and multivariate conditional logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with being a victim of school bullying. Results suggest physical bullying victimization was only associated with a family-level characteristic (parenting style) while the other four types of bullying victimization (relational, verbal, sexual, and property bullying) and poly-bullying victimization were associated with multiple social domain variables at individual, family, and school levels. Findings from this study provide evidence of factors for different types of bullying victimization and have implications for potential measures to prevent bullying. Measures from multiple social domains, including individual, family and school (e.g., developing healthy behaviors, improving social skills, positive parent-child interactions, building trust between teachers and peers, and forming strong friendships), should be considered in order to effectively prevent adolescent victimization from bullying.

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