Parental Stress Increases the Detrimental Effect of Traffic Exposure on Children's Lung Function

Abstract

Rationale: Emerging evidence indicates that psychosocial stress enhances the effect of traffic exposure on the development of asthma. Objectives: We hypothesized that psychosocial stress would also modify the effect of traffic exposure on lung function deficits. Methods: We studied 1,399 participants in the Southern California Children's Health Study undergoing lung function testing (mean age, 11.2 yr). We used hierarchical mixed models to assess the joint effect of traffic-related air pollution and stress on lung function. Measurements and Main Results: Psychosocial stress in each child's household was assessed based on parental response to the perceived stress scale (range, 0-16) at study entry. Exposures to nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, and total oxides of nitrogen (NO x ), surrogates of the traffic-related pollution mixture, were estimated at schools and residences based on a land-use regression model. Among children from high-stress households (parental perceived stress scale .4) deficits in FEV 1 of 4.5 (95% confidence interval, 26.5 to 22.4) and of 2.8% (25.7 to 0.3) were associated with each 21.8 ppb increase in NO x at homes and schools, respectively. These pollutant effects were significantly larger in the high-stress compared with lower-stress households (interaction P value 0.007 and 0.05 for residential and school NOx, respectively). No significant NOx effects were observed in children from low-stress households. A similar pattern of association was observed for FVC. The observed associations for FEV 1 and FVC remained after adjusting for sociodemographic factors and after restricting the analysis to children who do not have asthma. Conclusions: A high-stress home environment is associated with increased susceptibility to lung function effects of air pollution both at home and at school.

A Systematic Review of the Interplay Between Social Determinants and Environmental Exposures for Early-Life Outcomes

“…Asthma Outcomes Of the 15 studies that considered the joint contribution of social and environmental exposures in relation to asthma in childhood, four were individual-level prospective cohort studies [12][13][14][15], four were cross-sectional [16][17][18][19], and one was a retrospective cohort study [20] (Table 1). Other approaches included time series [21], case-crossover [22,23], ecologic and spatial [24,25], and econometric [26] designs and analyses.…”

Role of Biopsychosocial Factors on the Risk of Pneumonia in Children Under-Five Years Old at Dr. Moewardi Hospital, Surakarta

“…Penelitian Islam et al, (2011) tentang dampak stres terhadap gangguan saluran pernafasan membuktikan bahwa anak penderita asma yang tumbuh dalam keluarga yang mengalami tingkat stres tinggi mengalami lebih rentan mengalami penurunan fungsi paru akibat paparan polusi udara lebih besar 4.5 kali daripada anak yang dibesarkan dalam keluarga dengan tingkat stres rendah (CI 95 %= -6.5 hingga -2.4).…”

The Role of Non-Chemical Stressors in Mediating Socioeconomic Susceptibility to Environmental Chemicals

“…In a prospective cohort, Shankardass et al reported stronger effects of traffic-related pollution and in utero tobacco smoke on asthma onset among children of parents reporting higher perceived stress [40]. Islam et al found greater impacts of residential and school nitrogen oxides concentrations on forced expiratory volume in 1 s and forced vital capacity among children of parents reporting higher perceived stress, after adjusting for household SEP [41]. We found one cross-sectional study of cardiovascular outcomes; Hicken et al explored self-reported chronic stress, depression, and anxiety as potential effect modifiers of associations between PM 2.5 effects on blood pressure among adults in six US cities, but found no significant effect modification [34•].…”