Willis Mary D, Schrank David, Xu Chunxue, Harris Lena, Ritz Beate R, Hill Elaine L, Hystad Perry
Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
School of Biological and Population Health Sciences, College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
Sci Adv. 2022 Oct 28;8(43):eabp8281. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8281.
More than 11 million Americans reside within 150 meters of a highway, an area of high air pollution exposure. Traffic congestion further contributes to environmental pollution (e.g., air and noise), but its unique importance for population health is unclear. We hypothesized that degraded environmental quality specifically from traffic congestion has harmful impacts on fetal growth. Using a population-based cohort of births in Texas (2015-2016), we leveraged connected vehicle data to calculate traffic congestion metrics around each maternal address at delivery. Among 579,122 births, we found consistent adverse associations between traffic congestion and reduced term birth weight (8.9 grams), even after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics, typical traffic volume, and diverse environmental coexposures. We estimated that up to 1.2 million pregnancies annually may be exposed to traffic congestion (27% of births in the United States), with ~256,000 in the highest congestion zones. Therefore, improvements to traffic congestion may yield positive cobenefits for infant health.
超过1100万美国人居住在距离高速公路150米以内的区域，这是一个空气污染暴露程度较高的区域。交通拥堵进一步加剧了环境污染（如空气和噪音污染），但其对人群健康的独特重要性尚不清楚。我们推测，特别是交通拥堵导致的环境质量下降会对胎儿生长产生有害影响。利用德克萨斯州一个基于人群的出生队列（2015 - 2016年），我们利用联网车辆数据计算分娩时每个产妇住址周围的交通拥堵指标。在579,122例出生病例中，我们发现即使在考虑了社会人口学特征、典型交通流量和多种环境共同暴露因素之后，交通拥堵与足月出生体重降低（8.9克）之间仍存在一致的不良关联。我们估计，每年多达120万例妊娠可能暴露于交通拥堵环境中（占美国出生人口的27%）其中约25.6万例处于拥堵最严重的区域。因此，改善交通拥堵状况可能会给婴儿健康带来积极的协同效益。
