Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2025 Aug 5;269:114638. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2025.114638. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE/AIMS: Sleep health is an understudied but potentially important outcome of joint air pollution and psychosocial stress exposures in children. This study examined children’s sleep health outcomes in relation to air pollution (PM2.5, NO2, O3; aim 1), adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; aim 2), and air-pollution-by-ACEs interactions (aim 3).
METHODS: Participants were from ECHO-PATHWAYS, a three-cohort consortium. Aim 1 included 1166 participants across the three cohorts, and aims 2 and 3 included a subset of 719 participants from a single cohort. PM2.5 (μg/m3), NO2 (ppb), and O3 (ppb) were estimated during early infancy (0-6 months) and early childhood (6 months-6 years) using geocoded residential histories and spatiotemporal prediction models. Children’s lifetime exposures to 8 different types of ACEs were measured via parent report at child age 8-9 years. Sleep disturbance and sleep-related impairment outcomes were measured via children’s self-report at age 8-9 years. Analyses included linear regressions, adjusting for a priori-selected confounders.
RESULTS: Aim 1 results showed that, for every 1 IQR increase in early infancy NO2, children scored 0.31 (95 % CI 0.01, 0.61) points lower on sleep-related impairment. Aim 3 results showed that, for every additional ACE, the difference in sleep-related impairment per IQR increase in early infancy and early childhood NO2 was 0.43 (95 % CI 0.08, 0.78) and 0.41 (95 % CI 0.08, 0.73), respectively (psinteractions = 0.02). No other associations were observed.
CONCLUSION: We found little evidence of associations, with the exception of suggestive evidence for associations of NO2 and NO2-by-ACE interactions with sleep-related impairment.
PMID:40768818 | DOI:10.1016/j.ijheh.2025.114638
