CHILD-E&D

The CHILD-E&D project aims to better characterize part of the exposome of children by considering four environmental factors (air pollution, greenness, walkability, and sound environment). It will help identify exposure profiles and explore the associations between these different profiles and children’s psychomotor development and mental health. Potential cumulative and mediation effects will be investigated, providing a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Specifically, the project will rely on longitudinal data collected as part of the ELFE cohort study, a nationally representative sample of 18,321 children born in France in 2011. This data will be linked to four characteristics of the physical environment. To identify participant profiles based on the different environmental factors, unsupervised machine learning techniques will be used.

The project will provide a better understanding of the impact of part of the exposome on the psychomotor development and mental health of children living in mainland France. It may encourage the replication of these methods within other cohorts to strengthen the level of evidence regarding the results and raise new research questions, all with the aim of guiding public health and urban planning policies by considering a set of factors collectively rather than through targeted actions.