The association of early-life exposure to ambient fine particulate matter and later-childhood height-for-age in India. - GreenMedInfo Summary
The association of early-life exposure to ambient PMand later-childhood height-for-age in India: an observational study.
Environ Health. 2019 Jul 9 ;18(1):62. Epub 2019 Jul 9. PMID: 31288809
Dean Spears
BACKGROUND: Children in India are exposed to high levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM). However, population-level evidence of associations with adverse health outcomes from within the country is limited. The aim of our study is to estimate the association of early-life exposure to ambient PMwith child health outcomes (height-for-age) in India.
METHODS: We linked nationally-representative anthropometric data from India's 2015-2016 Demographic and Health Survey (n = 218,152 children under five across 640 districts of India) with satellite-based PMexposure (concentration) data. We then applied fixed effects regression to assess the association between early-life ambient PMand subsequent height-for-age, analyzing whether deviations in air pollution from the seasonal average for a particular place are associated with deviations in child height from the average for that season in that place, controlling for trends over time, temperature, and birth, mother, and household characteristics. We also explored the timing of exposure and potential non-linearities in the concentration-response relationship.
RESULTS: Children in the sample were exposed to an average of 55μ g/mof PMin their birth month. After controlling for potential confounders, a 100 μg/mincrease in PMin the month of birth was associated with a 0.05 [0.01-0.09] standard deviation reduction in child height. For an average 5 year old girl, this represents a height deficit of 0.24 [0.05-0.43] cm. We also found that exposure to PMin the last trimester in utero and in the first few months of life are significantly (p < 0.05) associated with child height deficits. We did not observe a decreasing marginal risk at high levels of exposure.
CONCLUSIONS: India experiences some of the worst air pollution in the world. To our knowledge, this is the first study to estimate the association of early-life exposure to ambient PMon child height-for-age at the range of ambient pollution exposures observed in India. Because average exposure to ambient PMis high in India, where child height-for-age is a critical challenge in human development, our results highlight ambient air pollution as a public health policy priority.