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- Persson Waye, Kerstin, 1959, et al.
(författare)
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Adopting a child perspective for exposome research on mental health and cognitive development - Conceptualisation and opportunities.
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental research. - 0013-9351 .- 1096-0953. ; 239:Pt 1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mental disorders among children and adolescents pose a significant global challenge. The exposome framework covering the totality of internal, social and physical exposures over a lifetime provides opportunities to better understand the causes of and processes related to mental health, and cognitive functioning. The paper presents a conceptual framework on exposome, mental health, and cognitive development in children and adolescents, with potential mediating pathways, providing a possibility for interventions along the life course. The paper underscores the significance of adopting a child perspective to the exposome, acknowledging children's specific vulnerability, including differential exposures, susceptibility of effects and capacity to respond; their susceptibility during development and growth, highlighting neurodevelopmental processes from conception to young adulthood that are highly sensitive to external exposures. Further, critical periods when exposures may have significant effects on a child's development and future health are addressed. The paper stresses that children's behaviour, physiology, activity pattern and place for activities make them differently vulnerable to environmental pollutants, and calls for child-specific assessment methods, currently lacking within today's health frameworks. The importance of understanding the interplay between structure and agency is emphasized, where agency is guided by social structures and practices and vice-versa. An intersectional approach that acknowledges the interplay of social and physical exposures as well as a global and rural perspective on exposome is further pointed out. To advance the exposome field, interdisciplinary efforts that involve multiple scientific disciplines are crucial. By adopting a child perspective and incorporating an exposome approach, we can gain a comprehensive understanding of how exposures impact children's mental health and cognitive development leading to better outcomes.
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| 2. |
- Smith, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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A field investigation on associations between environmental noise and adolescent physiological sleep: An Equal-Life study
- 2023
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Ingår i: 14th ICBEN Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- There is a need for field studies incorporating objective measures of both noise and sleep. Within the EU project Equal-Life we performed an in-depth field study to investigate associations between nocturnal noise exposure and physiological sleep. Participants (n=109; 68 female) were adolescents/young adults (18-19 years) recruited from within the longitudinal birth cohort STARS, around Gothenburg, Sweden. The noise exposure and sleep of each subject was investigated for four consecutive nights, from Tuesday night to Saturday morning. Outdoor noise was measured with sound level meters mounted outside bedroom windows. Indoor noise measurements and audio recordings were made in the bedrooms. Sleep was measured with a headband (DREEM3) incorporating dry EEG electrodes. Questionnaires were administered every evening and morning, and included items on daytime activities, sleepiness (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), sleep quality, sleep disturbance by noise, and the bedroom environment. Outdoor noise measurements were obtained for 465 days and nights. Nighttime levels ranged from 35.8 to 73.7 dB Lnight (mean±SD 47.6±5.5 dB Lnight). Twenty-four hour levels ranged from 39.5 to 69.1 dB LAEq,24h (mean±SD 51.3±5.4 dB LAEq,24h). Data analysis is ongoing, and results will be presented at the congress. We will determine associations between average noise levels (Lnight, and LAEq during the EEG-derived sleep period) and sleep structure. We will also determine acute effects of discrete noise events on sleep fragmentation including noise-induced awakenings and changes of sleep stage.
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| 3. |
- van Kamp, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Early environmental quality and life-course mental health effects: The Equal-Life project
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environmental Epidemiology. - 2474-7882. ; 6:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: There is increasing evidence that a complex interplay of factors within environments in which children grows up, contributes to children's suboptimal mental health and cognitive development. The concept of the life-course exposome helps to study the impact of the physical and social environment, including social inequities, on cognitive development and mental health over time. Methods: Equal-Life develops and tests combined exposures and their effects on children's mental health and cognitive development. Data from eight birth-cohorts and three school studies (N = 240.000) linked to exposure data, will provide insights and policy guidance into aspects of physical and social exposures hitherto untapped, at different scale levels and timeframes, while accounting for social inequities. Reasoning from the outcome point of view, relevant stakeholders participate in the formulation and validation of research questions, and in the formulation of environmental hazards. Exposure assessment combines GIS-based environmental indicators with omics approaches and new data sources, forming the early-life exposome. Statistical tools integrate data at different spatial and temporal granularity and combine exploratory machine learning models with hypothesis-driven causal modeling. Conclusions: Equal-Life contributes to the development and utilization of the exposome concept by (1) integrating the internal, physical and social exposomes, (2) studying a distinct set of life-course effects on a child's development and mental health (3) characterizing the child's environment at different developmental stages and in different activity spaces, (4) looking at supportive environments for child development, rather than merely pollutants, and (5) combining physical, social indicators with novel effect markers and using new data sources describing child activity patterns and environments.
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