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The association of early-life exposure to ambient PM2.5 and later-childhood height-for-age in India: an observational study
Authors: Dean Spears, Sagnik Dey, Sourangsu Chowdhury, Noah Scovronick, Sangita Vyas, and Joshua Apte
Source: Environmental Health , 18 (Article number: 62); DOI: 10.1186/s12940-019-0501-7
Topic(s): Child height
Pollution
Country: Asia
  India
Published: JUL 2019
Abstract: Background Children in India are exposed to high levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5). 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 PM2.5 with 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 PM2.5 exposure (concentration) data. We then applied fixed effects regression to assess the association between early-life ambient PM2.5 and 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 55 µ g/m3 of PM2.5 in their birth month. After controlling for potential confounders, a 100?µg/m3 increase in PM2.5 in 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 PM2.5 in the last trimester in utero and in the first few months of life are significantly (p?
Web: https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-019-0501-7