The Relationship between Ambient Air Pollutants and Early Childhood Neurobehavioral Development

• Main Authors: Shih-Kuan Yang, 楊世寬
• Other Authors: Pau-Chung Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52138314789108088363

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 職業醫學與工業衛生研究所 === 96 === BACKGROUND: It is widely acclaimed that air pollution can cause adverse health effects. However, the impact of air pollution exposure on neurobehavioral development in children still remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between the ambient levels of air pollutants exposure during prenatal and postnatal stages and early childhood neurobehavioral development. METHODS: We recruited 533 mother-infant pairs from 11 towns in Taiwan from November to December, 2003. All study subjects were requested to complete the childhood neurobehavioral development scales and questionnaires when their children were at the ages of 6 months and 18 months, respectively. Air pollutants, including particulate matter ≤10 μm (PM10), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), and hydrocarbons, were measured at air quality monitoring stations within the same towns where the subjects inhabit. We used multilevel analysis to assess the association between average exposure levels of air pollutants and early childhood neurobehavioral development at different trimesters during pregnancy and children at the ages of 0 to 6, 7 to 12, and 13 to 18 months, respectively. RESULTS: We found that at the age of 18 months, adverse fine motor score was associated with the average levels of exposure to SO2 during pregnancy of all trimesters and postnatal age before 12 months ( first trimesterβ=-0.083 se = 0.030; second and third trimesterβ=-0.114 se = 0.045; from birth to children twelve months of age β=-0.091 se = 0.034 ). Furthermore, the adverse gross motor score at the age of six months was associated with the increased average level of NMHC at the 2nd and 3rd trimesters (β=-8.742 se=3.512 ). CONCLUSIONS: Low level SO2 exposure during prenatal and postnatal age before twelve months can cause adverse neurobehavioral development at 18 months of age. Maternal NMHC exposure during 2nd and 3rd trimesters of pregnancy was also associated with poor gross motor development at 6 months of age of early childhood.