Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Language
English
Publication Date
3-1-2024
Journal
International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health
DOI
10.1016/j.ijheh.2023.114317
PMID
38171265
PMCID
PMC12070395
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
5-13-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Author MSS
Abstract
The literature informing susceptible periods of exposure on children’s neurodevelopment is limited. We evaluated the impacts of pre- and postnatal fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure on children’s cognitive and motor function among 1303 mother-child pairs in the Spanish INMA (Environment and Childhood) Study. Random forest models with temporal back extrapolation were used to estimate daily residential PM2.5 exposures that we averaged across 1-week lags during the prenatal period and 4-week lags during the postnatal period. The McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities (MSCA) were administered around 5 years to assess general cognitive index (GCI) and several subscales (verbal, perceptual-performance, memory, fine motor, gross motor). We applied distributed lag nonlinear models within the Bayesian hierarchical framework to explore periods of susceptibility to PM2.5 on each MSCA outcome. Effect estimates were calculated per 5 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 and aggregated across adjacent statistically significant lags using cumulative β (βcum) and 95% Credible Intervals (95%CrI). We evaluated interactions between PM2.5 with fetal growth and child sex. We did not observe associations of PM2.5 exposure with lower GCI scores. We found a period of susceptibility to PM2.5 on fine motor scores in gestational weeks 1–9 (βcum = −2.55, 95%CrI = −3.53,−1.56) and on gross motor scores in weeks 7–17 (βcum = −2.27,95%CrI = −3.43,−1.11) though the individual lags for the latter were only borderline statistically significant. Exposure in gestational week 17 was weakly associated with verbal scores (βcum = −0.17, 95%CrI = −0.26,−0.09). In the postnatal period (from age 0.5–1.2 years), we observed a window of susceptibility to PM2.5 on lower perceptual-performance (β = −2.42, 95%CrI = −3.37,−1.46). Unexpected protective associations were observed for several outcomes with exposures in the later postnatal period. We observed no evidence of differences in susceptible periods by fetal growth or child sex. Preschool-aged children’s motor function may be particularly susceptible to PM2.5 exposures experienced in utero whereas the first year of life was identified as a period of susceptibility to PM2.5 for children’s perceptual-performance.
Keywords
Pregnancy, Female, Humans, Child, Preschool, Child, Infant, Air Pollutants, Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects, Bayes Theorem, Particulate Matter, Cognition, Air Pollution, Environmental Exposure, Air pollution, PM2.5, McCarthy scales of Children’s abilities, Susceptible windows, Motor function, Cognitive function
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Whitworth, Kristina W; Rector-Houze, Alison M; Chen, Wei-Jen; et al., "Relation of Prenatal and Postnatal PM2.5 Exposure With Cognitive and Motor Function Among Preschool-Aged Children" (2024). Faculty, Staff and Student Publications. 1337.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/uthsph_docs/1337