1 ISGlobal (Institute for Global Health) , Barcelona, Spain.
2 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) , Barcelona, Spain.
Environ Health Perspect. 2019 Apr;127(4):47007. doi: 10.1289/EHP3971.
The exposome is defined as the totality of environmental exposures from conception onwards. It calls for providing a holistic view of environmental exposures and their effects on human health by evaluating multiple environmental exposures simultaneously during critical periods of life.
We evaluated the association of the urban exposome with birth weight.
We estimated exposure to the urban exposome, including the built environment, air pollution, road traffic noise, meteorology, natural space, and road traffic (corresponding to 24 environmental indicators and 60 exposures) for nearly 32,000 pregnant women from six European birth cohorts. To evaluate associations with either continuous birth weight or term low birth weight (TLBW) risk, we primarily relied on the Deletion-Substitution-Addition (DSA) algorithm, which is an extension of the stepwise variable selection method. Second, we used an exposure-by-exposure exposome-wide association studies (ExWAS) method accounting for multiple hypotheses testing to report associations not adjusted for coexposures.
The most consistent statistically significant associations were observed between increasing green space exposure estimated as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and increased birth weight and decreased TLBW risk. Furthermore, we observed statistically significant associations among presence of public bus line, land use Shannon's Evenness Index, and traffic density and birth weight in our DSA analysis.
This investigation is the first large urban exposome study of birth weight that tests many environmental urban exposures. It confirmed previously reported associations for NDVI and generated new hypotheses for a number of built-environment exposures. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP3971.
外核组学被定义为从受孕开始的所有环境暴露。它呼吁通过在生命关键时期同时评估多种环境暴露及其对人类健康的影响，提供对环境暴露及其对人类健康影响的整体认识。
我们评估了城市外核组学与出生体重的关系。
我们估计了近 32000 名来自六个欧洲出生队列的孕妇的城市外核组学暴露情况，包括建筑环境、空气污染、道路交通噪声、气象学、自然空间和道路交通（对应 24 个环境指标和 60 种暴露源）。为了评估与连续出生体重或足月低出生体重（TLBW）风险的关联，我们主要依赖于删除-替换-添加（DSA）算法，这是逐步变量选择方法的扩展。其次，我们使用了一种逐暴露的外核组学全关联研究（ExWAS）方法，考虑了多重假设检验，以报告未经共暴露调整的关联。
与绿色空间暴露呈正相关的观察到最一致的统计学显著关联，以归一化植被指数（NDVI）估计的绿色空间暴露增加与出生体重增加和 TLBW 风险降低有关。此外，我们在 DSA 分析中观察到公共汽车线路的存在、土地利用香农均匀度指数和交通密度与出生体重之间存在统计学显著的关联。
这是首次对出生体重进行的大型城市外核组学研究，测试了许多环境城市暴露。它证实了先前报道的 NDVI 关联，并为许多建筑环境暴露产生了新的假设。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP3971.
