Effects of Prenatal Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Childhood Material Hardship on Reading Achievement in Childhood

• In Event: The Effects of Early Life Environmental Toxicants on Neurodevelopment From Early to Middle Childhood

Abstract

Introduction: Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are at elevated risk for reading problems. They are also likely to live in neighborhoods with high levels of air pollution and to experience material hardship. Despite these risk factors, the links between prenatal chemical exposures, socioeconomic adversities, and reading problems in youth from disadvantaged backgrounds remain understudied.
Hypotheses: We aimed to examine associations between prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a common air pollutant, and reading skills, and determine if this relationship is exacerbated by material hardship among Black and/or Latinx children who have been followed as part of a longitudinal urban birth cohort. We hypothesized that exposure to both higher prenatal PAH and higher material hardship would be associated with poorer reading skill acquisition in childhood.
Study Population: Fifty-three mothers and their children, who were participants in a prospective birth cohort followed by the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, were recruited for the current study.
These 53 children (range 6-8 years old, mean age= 6.83, SD=0.38) were old enough to complete the childhood neurocognitive visit and had available WJ-III Basic Reading Index, prenatal PAH, material hardship, and all covariates. All participants identified as Black and/or Hispanic/Latinx and resided in Washington Heights, Central Harlem, or South Bronx areas of New York City.
Methods: Personal prenatal PAH exposure was measured during the third-trimester of pregnancy using a personal air monitoring backpack. Mothers reported their level of material hardship when their child was age 5 and children completed measures of pseudoword and word reading (Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ-III) Basic Reading Index) at age 7. We used multiple linear regression to examine the effects of the interaction between prenatal PAH and material hardship on Basic Reading Index, controlling for ethnicity/race, sex, birthweight, presence of a smoker in the home (prenatal), and maternal education (prenatal).
Results: A prenatal PAH × material hardship interaction significantly associated with WJ-III Basic Reading Index scores at age 7 (β=-.347, t(44)=-2.197, p=.033). Exploratory analyses suggested that this effect was driven by untimed pseudoword decoding (WJ-III Word Attack: β=-.391, t(44)=-2.550, p=.014).
In conclusion, environmental chemical exposures can be particularly toxic during the prenatal period when the fetal brain undergoes rapid development, making it uniquely vulnerable to chemical perturbations. These data highlight the interactive effects of environmental neurotoxicants and unmet basic needs on children’s acquisition of reading skill, specifically phonemic processing. Such findings identify potentially modifiable environmental risk factors implicated in reading problems in children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Authors

• Paige Greenwood, SRCD/AAAS Fellow
  Presenting Author

• Amy Margolis, Columbia University

• Jacob W Cohen

• Ran Liu, Columbia University

• Lori Hoepner, SUNY Downstate Health Science University

• Virginia Rauh, Columbia University Medical Center

• Julie Herbstman, Columbia University

• David Pagliaccio, New York State Psychiatric Institute