Green space, air pollution, traffic noise and cardiometabolic health in adolescents: The PIAMA birth cohort

Air pollution, noise, and green space are important environmental exposures, having been linked to a variety of specific health outcomes. However, there are few studies addressing overall early life development. To assess their effects, associations between developmental milestones for a large population of 0–4-year old children in The Netherlands and environmental exposures were explored. Developmental milestones and background characteristics were provided by Preventive Child Health Care (PCHC) and supplemented with data from Statistics Netherlands. Milestones were summarized and standardized into an aggregate score measuring global development. Four age groups were selected. Environmental exposures were assigned to geocoded addresses using publicly available maps for PM2.5, PM10, PMcoarse, NO2, EC, road traffic noise, and green space. Associations were investigated using single and multiple-exposure logistic regression models. 43,916 PCHC visits by 29,524 children were available. No consistent associations were found for air pollution and road traffic noise. Green space was positively associated in single and multiple-exposure models although it was not significant in all age groups (OR 1.01 (0.95; 1.08) (1 year) to 1.07 (1.01; 1.14) (2 years)). No consistent associations were found between air pollution, road traffic noise, and global child development. A positive association of green space was indicated.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Perinatal Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Atopy at 1 Year of Age in a Multi-Center Canadian Birth Cohort Study.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.725411384.793540353 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Lea Bentur ◽

Michal Gur

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Cohort Study ◽

Birth Cohort ◽

Birth Cohort Study ◽

Perinatal Exposure

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Is Brief Exposure to Green Space in School the Best Option to Improve Attention in Children?

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18147484 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (14) ◽

pp. 7484

Author(s):

Asier Anabitarte ◽

Gonzalo García-Baquero ◽

Ainara Andiarena ◽

Nerea Lertxundi ◽

Nerea Urbieta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

School Children ◽

Green Space ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Statistical Design ◽

Green Spaces ◽

Attention Network Test ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Gender Biases ◽

Before And After

The positive effects of Green Spaces on health are thought to be achieved through the mechanisms of mitigation, instoration and restoration. One of the benefits of Green Spaces may be the restoration of attention and so the objective of this research is testing empirically whether exposure to a green environment improves attention in school children. For so doing, we first used a split-unit statistical design in each of four schools, then combined the primary results via meta-analysis. The Attention Network Test (ANT) was used to measure attention before and after exposure and a total of 167 seven-year-old students participated in the experiments. Overall, our experimental results do not support the hypothesis that students’ exposure to activities in green vs. grey spaces affected their performance in ANT. This was so despite the fact that neither age nor gender biases have been detected and despite that our experiments have been proved to be sufficiently statistically powerful. It would be advisable to consider air pollution and noise. We also recommend that participants attend the experiment with mental exhaustion to maximize the ability to detect significant changes.

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Association between Green Space Structure and the Prevalence of Asthma: A Case Study of Toronto

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18115852 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (11) ◽

pp. 5852

Author(s):

Yuping Dong ◽

Helin Liu ◽

Tianming Zheng

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Green Space ◽

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽

Chronic Inflammatory Disease ◽

Space Structure ◽

Tree Diversity ◽

Underlying Mechanisms ◽

Index Tree

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that can be caused by various factors, such as asthma-related genes, lifestyle, and air pollution, and it can result in adverse impacts on asthmatics’ mental health and quality of life. Hence, asthma issues have been widely studied, mainly from demographic, socioeconomic, and genetic perspectives. Although it is becoming increasingly clear that asthma is likely influenced by green spaces, the underlying mechanisms are still unclear and inconsistent. Moreover, green space influences the prevalence of asthma concurrently in multiple ways, but most existing studies have explored only one pathway or a partial pathway, rather than the multi-pathways. Compared to greenness (measured by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, tree density, etc.), green space structure—which has the potential to impact the concentration of air pollution and microbial diversity—is still less investigated in studies on the influence of green space on asthma. Given this research gap, this research took Toronto, Canada, as a case study to explore the two pathways between green space structure and the prevalence of asthma based on controlling the related covariates. Using regression analysis, it was found that green space structure can protect those aged 0–19 years from a high risk of developing asthma, and this direct protective effect can be enhanced by high tree diversity. For adults, green space structure does not influence the prevalence of asthma unless moderated by tree diversity (a measurement of the richness and diversity of trees). However, this impact was not found in adult females. Moreover, the hypothesis that green space structure influences the prevalence of asthma by reducing air pollution was not confirmed in this study, which can be attributed to a variety of causes.

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Heterogeneous Urban Exposures and Prevalent Hypertension in the Helsinki Capital Region, Finland

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18031196 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 1196

Author(s):

Enembe O. Okokon ◽

Tarja Yli-Tuomi ◽

Taina Siponen ◽

Pekka Tiittanen ◽

Anu W. Turunen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Antihypertensive Medication ◽

Green Space ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Traffic Noise ◽

Fine Particulate Matter ◽

Binary Logistic Regression ◽

Wood Smoke ◽

Road Traffic Noise ◽

Smooth Functions ◽

Capital Region

Urban dwellers are simultaneously exposed to several environmental health risk factors. This study aimed to examine the relationship between long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5, diameter < 2.5 µm) of residential-wood-burning and road-traffic origin, road-traffic noise, green space around participants’ homes, and hypertension. In 2015 and 2016, we conducted a survey of residents of the Helsinki Capital Region to determine their perceptions of environmental quality and safety, lifestyles, and health statuses. Recent antihypertensive medication was used as an indicator of current hypertensive illness. Individual-level exposure was estimated by linking residential coordinates with modelled outdoor levels of wood-smoke- and traffic-related PM2.5, road-traffic noise, and coverage of natural spaces. Relationships between exposure and hypertension were modelled using multi-exposure and single-exposure binary logistic regression while taking smooth functions into account. Twenty-eight percent of the participants were current users of antihypertensive medication. The odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for antihypertensive use were 1.12 (0.78–1.57); 0.97 (0.76–1.26); 0.98 (0.93–1.04) and 0.99 (0.94–1.04) for wood-smoke PM2.5, road-traffic PM2.5, road-traffic noise, and coverage of green space, respectively. We found no evidence of an effect of the investigated urban exposures on prevalent hypertension in the Helsinki Capital Region.

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