Environmental influences using linked external data in ABCD: A review of the first decade

Environmental contextual factors, including neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, built environments, and environmental exposures, exert complex and multifaceted influences on neurodevelopmental outcomes. Characterizing these influences requires linking high-resolution geocoded residential data to information about neighborhoods, built and natural environments, exposures, and policies. We synthesize a decade of Linked External Data Environment and Policy (LED-E&P) research within the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM (ABCD) Study - a longitudinal cohort of ~11,800 U.S. youth, organized around the Adolescent Neural Urbanome, a framework that moves beyond aggregate socioeconomic proxies to directly measured environmental features. We first describe an overview of the LED-E&P working group, describe the geographical coverage of the ABCD Study dataset, and then summarize key findings across neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, built and urban environments, air pollution, greenspace, and macro-level state policies. The evidence consistently shows that adolescent development is shaped by cumulative environmental influences. Across these findings, three themes recur: these influences reflect social and structural drivers of health rather than differences in children or communities; both risk and protective factors shape outcomes; and developmental timing and study design determine what can be concluded. Moving forward, continued refinement of residential geocoding and exposure methods, integration with biological data, and translation to intervention science will advance understanding of modifiable environmental influences. This work enhances our ability to characterize developmental environments and identify modifiable targets to promote healthy development across adolescence and beyond.