Grant: Operating Grant: HCRI: Data Analysis Using Existing Databases and Cohorts

Children are increasingly facing chronic health conditions like diabetes, obesity and asthma, but this rise doesn't affect all families equally. Kids from low-income families are hit harder, experiencing more health issues and complications. Early childhood is a critical time when environmental factors, like where children live and play, can leave lasting impacts on their health. While we know that family poverty affects child health, research often overlooks important neighborhood and social factors that also play a role. Research on how these factors change as children grow is limited, and they ignore the combined effects of multiple environmental influences. This means we still have a lot to learn about how inequalities in children's environments contribute to unequal health outcomes. This project aims to explore how different environmental exposure patterns in early childhood, such as air quality, greenness, neighborhood characteristics, and social disadvantage, affect health inequalities. Using data from the two large research data platforms, CHILD Cohort Study and the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium, we will apply data-driven techniques that allow us to better understand these influences. Our study has two aims. Aim 1 is to identify distinct patterns of combined environmental exposures from birth to age 8 using data-driven methods, and Aim 2 is to measure the health inequality across these exposure patterns by examining biological and clinical outcomes at ages 8 and 13. This study will help to understand distinct exposure patterns and how they contribute to the inequality of clinical and biological outcomes in children. It will also inform targeted interventions that promote fair opportunities for better health across children with different environmental exposure patterns. Finally, the findings will guide future efforts to develop data-driven policies that promote health equity.