Recent versus chronic exposure to particulate matter air pollution in association with neurobehavioral performance in a panel study of primary schoolchildren.

Abstract

Children's neuropsychological abilities are in a developmental stage. Recent air pollution exposure and neurobehavioralperformance are scarcely studied. In a panel study, we repeatedly administered to each child the followingneurobehavioral tests: Stroop Test (selective attention) and Continuous Performance Test (sustainedattention), Digit Span Forward and Backward Tests (short-term memory), and Digit-Symbol and Pattern ComparisonTests (visual information processing speed). At school, recent inside classroom particulate matter ≤2.5or 10 μm exposure (PM2.5, PM10) was monitored on each examination day. At the child's residence, recent(same day up to 2 days before) and chronic (365 days before examination) exposures to PM2.5, PM10 and blackcarbon (BC) were modeled. Repeated neurobehavioral test performances (n = 894) of the children (n = 310)reflected slower Stroop Test (p = 0.05) and Digit-Symbol Test (p = 0.01) performances with increasing recentinside classroom PM2.5 exposure. An interquartile range (IQR) increment in recent residential outdoor PM2.5 exposurewas associated with an increase in average latency of 0.087 s (SE: ±0.034; p = 0.01) in the Pattern ComparisonTest. Regarding chronic exposure at residence, an IQR increment of PM2.5 exposure was associated withslower performances in the Continuous Performance (9.45 ± 3.47 msec; p = 0.007) and Stroop Tests (59.9 ±26.5 msec; p = 0.02). Similar results were obtained for PM10 exposure. In essence, we showed differential neurobehavioralchanges robustly and adversely associated with recent or chronic ambient exposure to PM air pollutionat residence, i.e., with recent exposure for visual information processing speed (Pattern Comparison Test)and with chronic exposure for sustained and selective attention