Influence of the Urban Exposome on Birth Weight

Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark; Agier, Lydiane; Basagaña, Xavier; Urquiza, José; Tamayo-Uria, Ibon; Giorgis-Allemand, Lise; Robinson, Oliver; Siroux, Valérie; Maitre, Léa; Castro, Montserrat de; Valentín, Antònia; Donaire, David; Dadvand, Payam; Aasvang, Gunn Marit; Krog, Norun Hjertager; Schwarze, Per E.; Chatzi, Leda; Gražulevičienė, Regina; Andrušaitytė, Sandra; Dėdelė, Audrius; McEachan, Rosemary; Wright, John; West, Jane; Ibarluzea, Jesús; Ballester, Ferrán; Vrijheid, Martine; Slama, Rémy

doi:10.1289/ehp3971

Cited by 82 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Interestingly, n our urban and suburban pregnancy cohort, access to signi cantly moderated the association between residential proximity to tra c and maternal biological stress in the 2 nd pregnancy trimester. Bene cial relationships between residential access to greenspace and hair cortisol concentrations have been described in previous studies [56,57]; whereas other studies have reported a bene cial impact of surrounding greenness on fetal growth and birth weight [58][59][60][61]. Neighborhood greenspace may improve health by relieving psychophysiological stress, supporting physical activity, increasing social contacts and by reducing exposure to air pollution, noise and excessive heat [62][63][64][65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Residential exposure to air pollution, access to neighborhood greenspace and their association with hair cortisol concentrations in the second and third trimester of pregnancy

Verheyen¹,

Rémy²,

Lambrechts³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes in studies worldwide, other studies have described beneficial effects of residential greenspace on pregnancy outcomes. The biological mechanisms that underlie these associations are incompletely understood. Recent studies have shown that a biological stress response, with release of cortisol, may underlie associations between air pollution and health effects. The available research on air pollution exposure in relation to biological stress during pregnancy is still scarce. Methods: We explored associations between residential exposure to air pollution, access to neighborhood greenspace and hair cortisol concentrations in a prospective pregnancy cohort study. We modelled participants’ residential air pollutant concentrations (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), black carbon (BC)), assessed residential distance to a major road and access to a neighborhood greenspace. Hair cortisol concentrations, reflecting cortisol secretion over a period of 3 months prior to sampling, were determined at the end of the second (n = 133) and third pregnancy trimester (n = 81). Results: Three-month mean residential NO2 and BC concentrations were positively associated with third pregnancy trimester hair cortisol concentrations. The residential distance to a major road was negatively associated with second and third trimester hair cortisol concentrations. Access to a greenspace of 10 hectares or more within 800 meters travel distance significantly moderated the association between residential proximity to a major road and second trimester hair cortisol concentrations. At an average residential distance of 304 meters from a major road, mean second trimester HCC were estimated 22% lower for mothers with access to a neighborhood greenspace (3.71 (95% CI: 3.24, 4.24) pg/mg hair) compared to mothers without access (4.22 (95% CI: 3.26, 5.47) pg/mg hair). The moderation tended towards significance in the third trimester (p < 0.10). Conclusions: Increased residential exposure to air pollution and closer proximity to a major road are associated with an increased biological stress response in the second and third trimester of pregnancy, access to neighborhood greenspace may moderate the association. Trial registration: The IPANEMA study is registered under number NCT02592005 at clinicaltrials.gov.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Residential exposure to air pollution, access to neighborhood greenspace and their association with hair cortisol concentrations in the second and third trimester of pregnancy

Verheyen¹,

Rémy²,

Lambrechts³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…The selection of exposures to consider in the study depends on the research question and issues of feasibility and data accessibility. Previous studies have included a wide range of external environmental exposures from various families, or have been specifically focused on certain components of the exposome, such as the urban or the chemical exposome, assessed at various developmental periods [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Socioand public health exposome conceptual frameworks have also been proposed and can guide the selection of exposures [20,21].…”

Section: Selecting and Pre-processing Exposuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The DSA algorithm was used, for instance, in recent studies within the HELIX project looking at the associations between the early-life exposome and childhood lung function and between the urban pregnancy exposome and birth weight [13,16]. The DSA algorithm is an iterative model search algorithm that relies on deletion (removing one variable from the model), substitution (replacing one variable from the model by one that was not yet included in the model) or addition (adding one new variable to the model) moves to find the optimal set of variables that minimizes the root mean square error.…”

Section: Variable Selection Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying the exposome concept in birth cohort research: a review of statistical approaches

et al. 2020

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The exposome represents the totality of life course environmental exposures (including lifestyle and other non-genetic factors), from the prenatal period onwards. This holistic concept of exposure provides a new framework to advance the understanding of complex and multifactorial diseases. Prospective pregnancy and birth cohort studies provide a unique opportunity for exposome research as they are able to capture, from prenatal life onwards, both the external (including lifestyle, chemical, social and wider community-level exposures) and the internal (including inflammation, metabolism, epigenetics, and gut microbiota) domains of the exposome. In this paper, we describe the steps required for applying an exposome approach, describe the main strengths and limitations of different statistical approaches and discuss their challenges, with the aim to provide guidance for methodological choices in the analysis of exposome data in birth cohort studies. An exposome approach implies selecting, pre-processing, describing and analyzing a large set of exposures. Several statistical methods are currently available to assess exposome-health associations, which differ in terms of research question that can be answered, of balance between sensitivity and false discovery proportion, and between computational complexity and simplicity (parsimony). Assessing the association between many exposures and health still raises many exposure assessment issues and statistical challenges. The exposome favors a holistic approach of environmental influences on health, which is likely to allow a more complete understanding of disease etiology.

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“…69 Several aspects of the urban exposome, such as green space, bus lines close to residential addresses, and lower building density are linked to improved birth outcomes. 70 Urban green space is perhaps the best example of an environmental factor that may act as a public health good.…”

Section: Environmental Exposures and Birthweight Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…160 In a large review of the urban exposome and birth outcomes, green space emerged as the protective factor with the most consistent association with improved outcomes. 70 A systematic review in 2017 found reasonable support for a positive association between green space and birthweight, mixed results for gestational length, and limited studies on outcomes such as head circumference, Apgar score, and mortality. 161…”

Section: Birth Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel green space measures and birthweight in Queensland, Australia

Vilcins¹

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IntroductionEnvironmental exposures can contribute both benefits and risks to human health. Green space represents an environmental exposure that may confer benefits to human health. There are several proposed benefits to green space exposure, such as improving mental wellbeing, increasing physical activity, improving the social cohesion of local neighbourhoods, reducing the negative effect of environmental risk factors, and improving exposure to beneficial microbiota. One of the proposed health benefits is an improvement in the health outcomes of neonates. Maternal exposure to green space has been associated with improvements in birthweight, among other birth outcomes. The developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis suggests that investing in healthy foetal development in Utero confers benefits across the life span. This makes an assessment of the potential impacts of environmental exposures on foetal development an important undertaking in population health. The current body of evidence on birthweight and maternal green space exposure is limited to a handful of exposure measures and coarse allocation of exposure. Newer measures of green space have been developed, which allows for an exploration of the effect of different ground covers (green, dry and bare earth), as well as measures of biodiversity, on health. This thesis explores the association of these novel green space measures with birthweight in a large birth cohort in Queensland, Australia. ObjectivesThis study has several objectives: 1) to examine the maternal and socio-demographic characteristics associated with birthweight; 2) to test for an association between green space, dry cover and bare earth and birthweight outcomes, controlling for the maternal and social factors; 3) to test whether foliage projective cover, a measure of crown canopy shading, is associated with birthweight outcomes; 4) to explore whether effects of green space differ between rural and urban communities; 5) to explore the interaction of green space with other environmental variables, namely air pollution and ambient temperature; and 6) to explore whether biodiversity is associated with birthweight outcomes. MethodsSeveral data sets were acquired and merged to create the data set used in this study. The outcome was birthweight (in grams and age-standardised), and this was acquired along with maternal covariates from the routine health records available for all births in Queensland, Australia. Social and neighbourhood variables were acquired from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The exposures of interest to this study were green space (fractional cover, biodiversity and foliage projective iii cover), ambient temperature and air pollution. Directed acyclic graphs were developed to guide variable selection in all analyses. Mixed-effects linear regression and generalised linear mixedeffects models were developed, with random intercepts for maternal residential locality and year of birth. Results are presented as standardised beta coefficients or odds ratios, with 95% ...

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Influence of the Urban Exposome on Birth Weight

Cited by 82 publications

References 56 publications

Residential exposure to air pollution, access to neighborhood greenspace and their association with hair cortisol concentrations in the second and third trimester of pregnancy

Residential exposure to air pollution, access to neighborhood greenspace and their association with hair cortisol concentrations in the second and third trimester of pregnancy

Applying the exposome concept in birth cohort research: a review of statistical approaches

Novel green space measures and birthweight in Queensland, Australia

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