Environ Int. 2026 Sep 2;215:110500. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2026.110500. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Prenatal and early life exposure to phthalates has been increasingly implicated in adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. However, associations between phthalate exposure in early life and later adolescent mental health remain understudied, particularly when also considering co-exposure to early life psychosocial stressors. We examined the independent and combined associations of prenatal and early life (ages three, five, and seven) phthalate exposure with adolescent internalizing symptoms in a longitudinal cohort of 563 Black and LatinĂ© mother-child dyads living in a low-income urban neighborhood. We further explored whether early life stress modified these associations or predicted internalizing symptoms independently. Exposure to eleven common phthalates was assessed using urinary metabolites measured in the third trimester of pregnancy and in children ages three, five, and seven. Early life stress was operationalized by a composite measure of material hardship and maternal demoralization measured concurrently with phthalate exposure. Youth self-reported anxiety and depression symptoms were measured between ages 13-15 with the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale and Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Inventory, respectively. Bayesian kernel machine regression assessed effects of the phthalate mixture on anxiety and depression symptoms. False discovery rate-corrected, pooled linear regressions tested individual phthalate effects, stratified by sex, and tested early life stress as an effect modifier. We did not detect significant associations between prenatal or postnatal phthalate exposure-either independently or jointly-and adolescent depression or anxiety; early life stress did not modify these associations or independently predict symptomology. However, uncertainty in effect estimates necessitates future research to clarify if these null effects hold in larger samples. If replicated, our findings suggest that there may be important, as yet unknown resilience factors protecting youth from long term effects of early phthalate exposure.
PMID:42691637 | DOI:10.1016/j.envint.2026.110500
