Grant: Project Grant

One of four Canadian children suffer deficiencies in early development and the difference between various socioeconomic groups is large. While the impact of environmental exposures on children's health is known to be large, the influence on early development is poorly understood. Equally, the influence of interactions between harmful exposures, such as noise and air pollution, and beneficial exposures, such as natural environments (NE, both vegetative, green, or water, blue), has not been investigated before. The primary goal with this project is to address this research gap and study relations between various environmental exposures and children's early development and health. We will focus on early life exposures - prenatally, in infancy, and up to age five. We will investigate the impacts of harmful environmental exposures (air pollution and noise) as well as beneficial exposures from NE, including a possible moderating effect of NE on harmful exposures. A sub-goal is to investigate a potentially mitigating effect of NE on socioeconomically related impairments in development. The significance of the proposed project is well reflected by a highly urbanized Canadian society with declining early childhood development and increasing socioeconomic inequalities, where knowledge on healthy urban planning is urgently required. The focus on children is specifically chosen in order to provide the highest health impact across the life course and thereby contributing to a healthier Canadian society. Results from the project may contribute to solutions to current challenges for early childhood development in terms of rapidly changing living environments, harmful exposures, and stressful lives. We aim to increase the evidence for environmental exposures' relation to early childhood development and thereby support healthy urban planning with targeted environmental interventions for a vulnerable population - children, especially in socioeconomically deprived areas.