Doctors and health experts have often warned against the disastrous impact of air pollution on human health. Now a new study has revealed that poor air quality could be causing cognitive deficits in babies and toddlers.
Conducted in India, this is the first study to show an association between poor air quality and cognitive problems in infants under two, when brain growth is at its peak.
The study was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with Durham University, the Community Empowerment Lab in Lucknow (India) and Brown University (US).
The study reveals the alarming link between poor air quality in India and impaired cognition in infants under two.
“Prior work has shown that poor air quality is linked to cognitive deficits in children, as well as to emotional and behavioural problems, which can have a severe impact on families. Very small particulate fragments in the air are a major concern as they can move from the respiratory tract into the brain. Until now, studies had failed to show a link between poor air quality and cognitive problems in babies, when brain growth is at its peak and the brain may be particularly sensitive to toxins. Our study is the first to show this association. We worked with families in rural India to see how in-home air quality affects infants’ cognition,” Lead researcher Prof John Spencer, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said in a statement.
During the study, the team collaborated with the Community Empowerment Lab in Lucknow, India – a global health research and innovation organization that works with rural communities to engage in science collaboratively.
The researchers used air quality monitors in the children’s homes to measure emission levels and air quality. They also took into account and controlled for family socio-economic status. They assessed the visual working memory and visual processing speed of 215 infants using a specially-designed cognition task from October 2017 to June 2019.
On one display, the tots were shown flashing-coloured squares that were always the same after each ‘blink’. On a second display, one coloured square changed after each blink.
“This task capitalises on infant’s tendency to look away from something that’s visually familiar and towards something new. We were interested in whether infants could detect the changing side and how well they did as we made the task harder by including more squares on each display,” Prof Spencer said in a statement.
The team used air quality monitors in the children’s homes to measure emission levels and air quality. They also took into account and controlled for family socio-economic status.
“This research shows for the first time that there is an association between poor air quality and impaired visual cognition in the first two years of life, when brain growth is at its peak,” said Prof Spencer.
One key factor the team measured was the cooking fuel commonly used at home. The findings of the study was published in the journal eLife.
