Exposure to Ambient Fine Particulate Matter and Early Childhood Cognitive Functioning: Interaction with Maternal History of Stress and Perceived Neighborhood Quality

详细信息   

• 作者：Chatterjee ; Debanjana
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2014
• 关键词：Social sciences ; Health and environmental sciences
• 导师：Gangnon,Ronald E.
• 毕业院校：The University of Wisconsin
• Department：Population Health
• 专业：Toxicology;Surgery;Early childhood education;Public health;Individual & family studies
• ISBN：9781321127324
• CBH：3633134
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：2343581
• Pages：177

文摘

The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how early life exposure to environmental pollutants like ambient PM2.5 affects childhood cognitive functioning and whether maternal history of stress and perceived neighborhood qualities moderate this association. The specific goals of this dissertation are to determine if and to what extent: (1) average exposure to ambient PM 2.5 during the first 9 months of children's lives affect their cognitive functioning at 2 years;(2) experience of preconception stressful life events (PSLEs) by the biological mothers moderate the association between average PM2.5 exposure during the first 9 months of children' lives and their cognitive functioning at 2 years;and (3) perceived neighborhood quality attenuates the effect of ambient air quality on children's cognitive functioning. The dissertation first provides an overview of empirical frameworks and existing literature on the role of ambient PM2.5 on neurocognitive development and identifies potential gaps in the current body of research. As a second step,this research utilizes data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) study and air monitoring data on ambient PM2.5 from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) AirData website. Results from the first manuscript of this dissertation suggest there exposure to smaller doses of PM2.5 during the first 9 months of children's lives may have more detrimental effects on cognitive development of children at 2 years. Findings from the second manuscript suggest that ambient PM2.5 is equally likely to affect childhood cognition,irrespective of the mother's experience of any PSLE. However PSLEs may indirectly moderate the association between cognition and exposure to PM2.5 through birthweight status. Finally,findings of the last manuscript suggest that irrespective of the perceived neighborhood quality,childhood cognition is equally likely to be affected by PM2.5 exposure. This study shows that early life exposure to ambient PM2.5 matters for childhood cognition and that very-low and low birthweight children are more vulnerable to the adverse effect of PM2.5 . Future studies need to investigate how specific components of ambient PM2.5 affect children's neurocognitive development and whether different domains of maternal stress can differentially moderate the association between environmental exposures and cognitive functioning.