Perinatal air pollution exposure and development of asthma from birth to age 10 years

Within-city variation in air pollution has been associated with childhood asthma development, but findings have been inconsistent. We examined whether perinatal air pollution exposure affected asthma onset during "pre-school and "school age" periods in a population-based birth cohort.65,254 children born between 1999 and 2002 in the greater Vancouver metropolitan region were followed until age 10 years using linked administrative health databases. Asthma cases were sex- and age-matched to five randomly chosen controls. Associations between exposure to air pollutants estimated with different methods (interpolation (inverse-distance weighted (IDW)), land use regression, proximity) and incident asthma during the pre-school (0-5 years) and school age (6-10 years) periods were estimated with conditional logistic regression.6948 and 1711 cases were identified during the pre-school and school age periods, respectively. Following adjustment for birthweight, gestational period, household income, parity, breastfeeding at discharge, maternal age and education, asthma risk during the pre-school years was increased by traffic pollution (adjusted odds ratio using IDW method per interquartile increase (95% CI): nitric oxide 1.06 (1.01-1.11), nitrogen dioxide 1.09 (1.04-1.13) and carbon monoxide 1.05 (1.01-1.1)). Enhanced impacts were observed amongst low-term-birthweight cases. Associations were independent of surrounding residential greenness.Within-city air pollution variation was associated with new asthma onset during the pre-school years.