WP2: Health

The objective of WP2 Health is to unravel how health and health-related risk factors develop over the life course in living environments affected by climate change as quantified in WP1. It will use longitudinal health data from 7 established cohorts which have followed participants over various life stages (YFS: Raitakari et al. 2008; STRIP: Simell et al. 2009; FinnBrain: Karlsson et al. 2018; SFBC and STEPS Study: Lagström et al. 2013; HeSSup: Suominen et al. 2012; FIREA: Leskinen et al. 2018). The incorporation of comprehensive geographically-specific longitudinal information on the health-related characteristics of areas offers considerable analytical potential to examine the links between place and health. Local environments, and hence local risk factors, can change rapidly as the climate changes, and this is likely to have profound implications for health, wellbeing and inequalities; further research is needed to understand these changes. We adopt a life course of place approach in collaboration with WP1 utilizing small area longitudinal measurements linked to repeat individual level health data across up to three generations.

In Task 2.1, we examine the effects of local physical and social environment exposures on the development of health and health-related risk factors from birth to adolescence and middle life. Some neighborhood-related differences have been observed in poor birth outcomes, mother’s breastfeeding behaviors and children’s markers of stress; green space during childhood is associated with better mental health in adulthood; and reduced contact with biodiversity-rich environments may have a crucial role in the epidemics of chronic inflammatory diseases, diabetes and obesity by adversely affecting the assembly and composition of the human commensal microbiota. However, no comprehensive longitudinal studies are available regarding the associations between social and physical living environment and the development of health risk factors and their trajectories from infancy to early adulthood.

In Task 2.2, we examine the effect of local physical and social environment exposures on trajectories of disease risk factors and cause-specific morbidity and mortality from middle life to old age. Living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods has been associated with worsened cardiometabolic health, such as detrimental lifestyle factors and worse glucose metabolism, increased incidence of diabetes and major cardiovascular diseases, but it is not known how changes in physical environmental exposures affect these associations.

In Task 2.3, we examine the association of health with the most important exposures found in tasks 1 and 2 across generations and how ancestral environmental exposures affect offspring health, important albeit poorly understood issues. With a wider set of environmental measures we can investigate the role of place at various points in the life course in explaining health and finding health-place relations that are formed through steady accumulation of “exposure” over time (e.g., gradual changes in different types of natural space sensitive to climate change) and/or due to critical moments with sudden and perhaps profound implications for health (e.g., heat waves).

References:

Karlsson L et al. 2018. Cohort Profile: The FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study (FinnBrain). International J Epidemiol 47: 15–16.

Lagström H et al. 2013. Cohort Profile: Steps to the Healthy Development and Well-being of Children (the STEPS Study). Int J Epidemiol 42: 1273–1284.

Leskinen T et al. 2018. Changes in non-occupational sedentary behaviors across the retirement transition: the Finnish Retirement and Aging Study (FIREA). J Epidemiol Comm Health 72: 695–701.

Raitakari OT et al. 2008. Cohort profile: the cardiovascular risk in Young Finns Study. Int J Epidemiol 37: 1220–6.

Simell O et al. 2009. Cohort Profile: the STRIP Study (Special Turku Coronary Risk Factor Intervention Project), an Infancy-onset Dietary and Life-style Intervention Trial. Int J Epidemiol 38: 650–5.

Suominen S et al. 2012. Non-response in a nationwide follow-up postal survey in Finland: A register-based mortality analysis of respondents and non-respondents of the Health and Social Support (HeSSup) Study. BMJ Open, 2: e000657