Marshall and colleagues probed relationships between air quality and the physical health of 9- and 10-year-olds. They completed “cross-sectional analyses of 8,429 youth . . . in which nine physical health conditions (having underweight or overweight/obesity, not participating in sports activities, short sleep duration, high sleep disturbances, lack of vigorous and strengthening-related physical activity, miscellaneous medical problems, and traumatic brain injury) were regressed on three environmental factors [neighborhood disadvantage (area deprivation index [ADI]), risk of lead exposure, and concentrations of particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5)]. . . . Environmental data were geocoded to participants' primary residential addresses. . . . Risk of lead exposure and ADI were positively associated with the odds of having overweight/obesity, not participating in sports activity, and short sleep durations. . . . PM2.5 was positively associated with the odds of having overweight/obesity and reduced vigorous physical activity. Family-level SES [related to] relationships between ADI and both underweight and overweight/obesity, with high [family-level] SES being associated with more pronounced changes given increased ADI.”
Andrew Marshall, Shana Adise, Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, Ogechi Hippolyte, Camille Parchment, Tanta Villalbos, Lawrence Wong, Cynthia Cisneros, Eric Kan, Clare Palmer, Stefanie Bodison, Megan Herting, and Elizabeth Sowell. 2023. “Family- and Neighborhood-Level Environmental Associations with Physical Health Conditions in 9- and 10-Year-Olds.” Health Psychology, vol. 42, no. 12, pp. 878-888, https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001254