Early-life exposure to air pollution and greater use of academic support services in childhood: a population-based cohort study of urban children

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a growing literature showing associations between prenatal and early-life exposure to air pollution and children’s neurodevelopment. However, it is unclear if decrements in neurodevelopment observed in epidemiologic research translate into observable functional outcomes in the broader pediatric population. The objective of this study was to examine the association between early-life exposures to common urban air toxics and the use of academic support services, such as early intervention and special education within a population-based cohort of urban children.MethodsData for 201,559 children born between 1994 and 1998 in New York City were obtained through administrative data linkages between birth, early intervention and educational records. Use of academic support services was ascertained from birth through attendance in 3rd grade. Census tract at birth was used to assign estimates of annual average ambient concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) using the 1996 National Air Toxics Assessment. Discrete-time hazard models were fit to the data and adjusted for confounders including maternal, childhood and neighborhood factors.ResultsChildren with higher exposures to BTEX compounds were more likely to receive academic support services later in childhood. For example, the adjusted hazard ratio comparing children exposed to the highest decile of benzene to those with lower exposure was 1.09 (95% confidence interval 1.05, 1.13). Results were consistent across individual BTEX compounds, for exposure metrics which summarized exposure to all four BTEX pollutants and for multiple sensitivity analyses.ConclusionsThese findings suggest urban air pollution may affect children’s neurodevelopment and educational trajectories. They also demonstrate the use of public health data systems to advance children’s environmental health research.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-017-0210-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Review of recent researches on air pollution effects on human cognitive functions

“…Study of twins indicated genetic and environment affects various parts of brain. According to the study published in Journal of Nuclear Medicine in March shows that effect of genes on glucose metabolism plays a vital role in parietal lobe and left temporal lobe while environment effects can be seen in other regions of brain [15]. Hatazawa states about the mentioned study, although previous studies have examined considerable effect of genetic on volume of gray matter in the frontal cortex, this study shows that glucose metabolism in forehead is more affected by environmental factors.…”

“…Hatazawa states about the mentioned study, although previous studies have examined considerable effect of genetic on volume of gray matter in the frontal cortex, this study shows that glucose metabolism in forehead is more affected by environmental factors. If we know those parts of brain that are more affected by environment and pollutant agents, we will understand neurologic disorders and cognitive function better [15]. Reviewing selected papers in this research, it was found that…”

Inequalities in Exposure to Ambient Air Neurotoxicants and Disparities in Markers of Neurodevelopment in Children by Maternal Nativity Status

“…Individual and collective exposure measures were evaluated, but only isophorone displayed a crude association with BSF-R mental z-scores and was subsequently used for further assessments. To account for the rightly-skewed distribution, isophorone along with the other nine pollutants were dichotomized at the 75th quartile to obtain ‘high’ and ‘low’ exposure categories [ 32 , 36 ]. This approach reduces exposure measure susceptibility to overly influential outliers occurring when totaling the individual-level estimated exposure concentrations [ 32 ].…”

“…Growing evidence highlights prenatal exposures to HAPs contributing to the disruption of fetal brain development introducing vulnerabilities to adverse neurodevelopment in children [ 31 , 34 , 35 ]. Previous studies showed the relationship between early life exposure to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX), and neurodevelopment, as measured by the development of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as greater use of academic support services in children highly exposed to this form of air pollution [ 36 ]. Similarly, other studies have shown that early life exposure to diesel and PAH/POM, additional markers of pollution due to vehicular traffic, were associated with lower cognitive development scores in children [ 29 , 37 , 38 ].…”

Quantifying Urban Spatial Variations of Anthropogenic VOC Concentrations and Source Contributions with a Mobile Sampling Platform

“…The BTEX species are all HAPs. For example, numerous cohort studies and other epidemiology studies found correlation of benzene exposure to adverse health effects [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17].…”