Inequities in life course air pollution exposure and health

Keywords: Inequities, Exposure, Air pollution, Longitudinal data, New Zealand
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The adverse effects of environmental exposures and related greater burden of disease (both mental and physical) are often most pronounced for disadvantaged populations such as those of lower socioeconomic position and ethnic minorities. While treatments are important, preventive population-level interventions tackling adverse environmental conditions will have a bigger impact on population-level health outcomes. In Aotearoa New Zealand, persistent and worsening inequities exist for health outcomes as well as environmental exposures that disproportionately affect the indigenous Māori population. However, we know little about individual differences in these exposures over the life course.

Evaluation of the long-term effects of air pollution on human health over the life course is a complex task requiring long-term longitudinal cohort study measures of the same population and reliable estimates of the population’s level of exposure to air pollutants over a wide range of areas and time. This study combines historical air pollution data (1970’s-2017) and individual-level information about 1,256 participants of the Christchurch (NZ) Health and Development Study (CHDS) cohort following participants annually for 40 years. It aims to characterise the sociodemographic (i.e., age, gender and ethnicity) and socioeconomic factors (i.e., socioeconomic status) as well as physical and mental health outcomes related to long-term air pollution exposure for cohort members of the CHDS. The contribution will navigate through spatiotemporal strategies used during the creation of historical air pollution estimates and longitudinal models of exposures over the life course to better understand possible inequities related to the demographic or socioeconomic characteristics of the cohort.