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Perinatal air pollution exposure and development of asthma from birth to age 10 years

Hind Sbihi1, Lillian Tamburic2, Mieke Koehoorn2

  • 1School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada hind.sbihi@ubc.ca.

The European Respiratory Journal
|February 11, 2016
PubMed

Insights

Childhood asthma onset is linked to air pollution exposure. Traffic pollutants like nitrogen dioxide increased pre-school asthma risk, especially for low-birthweight infants.

Area of Science:

  • Environmental Health
  • Pediatric Epidemiology
  • Respiratory Medicine

Background:

  • Childhood asthma development is linked to urban air pollution, but findings are inconsistent.
  • Understanding the impact of specific air pollutants on asthma onset is crucial for public health interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the association between perinatal air pollution exposure and asthma onset in children.
  • To differentiate impacts during pre-school (0-5 years) and school-age (6-10 years) periods.

Main Methods:

  • A population-based birth cohort of 65,254 children in Vancouver (1999-2002) was followed until age 10.
  • Asthma cases were matched with controls; associations with air pollutants (nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide) were analyzed using conditional logistic regression.
  • Exposure was estimated using inverse-distance weighting (IDW), land use regression, and proximity methods.

Main Results:

  • Increased asthma risk during pre-school years was associated with traffic pollutants (NO: 1.06, NO2: 1.09, CO: 1.05 per IQR increase).
  • Enhanced impacts were observed in children with low birth weight.
  • Associations were independent of residential greenness.

Conclusions:

  • Within-city air pollution variation is associated with new-onset asthma during early childhood.
  • Traffic-related air pollution is a significant risk factor for pre-school asthma development.

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