Inequities in Children’s Environmental Exposures: Integrating Toxicant, Social, and Structural Influences on Children’s Physical Health

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Children already exposed to structural and social stressors are more likely to experience toxicant exposures, potentially increasing vulnerability for detrimental health and developmental outcomes. This symposium will examine how environmental inequities contribute to child physical health outcomes by exploring combined associations of co-occurring exposures (toxicant and non-toxicant) through innovative methodological approaches. The first presentation utilizes structural equation modeling and reports the concurrent additive associations of air pollution (PM2.5) and water toxicants, as well as mixed associations of neighborhood conditions (e.g., housing burden), with reduced cortisol and heightened interleukin-6, measures of stress and inflammatory responses, in adolescents. The second presentation reveals that neighborhood deprivation, risk for lead exposure, and PM2.5 were associated with cross-sectional poor physical health outcomes (e.g., obesity) at 9-10 years, with some associations further modified by SES. The third presentation examines combined cross-sectional effects of multiple air pollutants and violence on epilepsy and seizure events in 0-4 year olds. Results suggest that main, positive effects for PM2.5 were modified by annual violent crime rates in the opposite-to-hypothesized direction, perhaps suggesting a saturation effect, an important consideration when examining cumulative exposures. The final presentation will broaden the scope by proposing structural racism as the target of work addressing children’s environmental inequities and discuss systems dynamics modeling as a conceptual and methodological approach to examining the systems that create and maintain disparities in cumulative childhood exposures. Altogether, this symposium will advance developmental science through integrating interdisciplinary scholarship to better understand and tackle environmental injustices that underpin children’s health and development.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: Environmental Justice

Chair

• Olivia M Halabicky, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Individual Presentations

• Neighborhood Disadvantage and Environmental Toxins Predict Elevated Immunological and Suppressed Adrenocortical Functioning in Mexican-origin Youth - Presenting Author: Elisa Ugarte, University of California - Davis; Lisa Johnson, University of California - Davis; Luis A Parra, Washington University in Saint Louis; Richard Whitney Robins, University of California - Davis; Amanda E Guyer, University of California - Davis; Paul David Hastings, University of California - Davis

• Family- and Neighborhood-Level Environmental Associations With Physical-Health Conditions in 9- and 10-Year-Olds - Presenting Author: Andrew T Marshall, University of Southern California; Shana Adise, University of Southern California; Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, University of Southern California; Ogechi K. Hippolyte, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Camille A. Parchment, University of Southern California; Tanya I. Villalobos, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Lawrence T. Wong, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Cynthia Pace Cisneros; Eric C. Kan, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles; Clare E. Palmer, University of California San Diego; Stefanie Bodison; Megan M Herting, University of Southern California; Elizabeth R. Sowell, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California Los Angeles

• Synergistic Effects of air Pollution and Neighborhood Violence on Epilepsy and Seizure in Young Children - Presenting Author: Jane E. Clougherty, Drexel University; Rachit Sharma, Drexel University; Jamie L. Humphrey; Ellen J. Kinnee; Perry Sheffield, Icahn School of Medicine at Moint Sinai

• Institutional Mechanisms of Structural Racism and Children’s Brain Development: Argument for System Dynamics - Presenting Author: Devon C. Payne-Sturges, University of Maryland - College Park; Ellis Ballard, Washington University; Janean E Dilworth-Bart, University of Wisconsin - Madison