Key result
Adolescent pollution exposure is linked to altered autonomic function and higher sympathetic dominance.
Why the study?
Poverty and racial/ethnic discrimination coincide with social and physical environmental risks that may adversely affect physiology, but associations of multidimensional social disadvantage throughout adolescence with autonomic nervous system functioning were unclear.
Does cumulative exposure to environmental toxins and social disadvantage alter autonomic nervous system functioning in Mexican-American adolescents?
Cohort (n=229)
Does cumulative exposure to environmental toxins and social disadvantage alter autonomic nervous system functioning in Mexican-American adolescents?
Cumulative exposure to physical environmental toxins during adolescence significantly disrupts autonomic functioning, highlighting a biological mechanism through which poverty and pollution may embed lifelong health disparities.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Should not yet alter adolescent management; leaves open whether pollution-linked autonomic changes mediate later cardiovascular disparities.
The experience of poverty embodies complex, multidimensional stressors that may adversely affect physiological and psychological domains of functioning. Compounded by racial/ethnic discrimination, the financial aspect of family poverty typically coincides with additional social and physical environmental risks such as pollution exposure, housing burden, elevated neighborhood unemployment, and lower neighborhood education levels. In this study, we investigated the associations of multidimensional social disadvantage throughout adolescence with autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning at 17 years. Two hundred and twenty nine low-income Mexican-American adolescents (48.6% female) and their parents were assessed annually between the ages of 10 and 16. Participants' census tracts were matched with corresponding annual administrative data of neighborhood housing burden, education, unemployment, drinking water quality, and fine particulate matter. We combined measures of adolescents' electrodermal response and respiratory sinuses arrhythmia at rest and during a social exclusion challenge (Cyberball) to use as ANS indices of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, respectively. Controlling for family income-to-needs, youth exposed to greater cumulative water and air pollution from ages 10-16 displayed altered patterns of autonomic functioning at rest and during the social challenge. Conversely, youth living in areas with higher housing burden displayed healthy patterns of autonomic functioning. Altogether, results suggest that toxin exposure in youths' physical environments disrupts the ANS, representing a plausible mechanism by which pollutants and social disadvantage influence later physical and mental health.
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Ugarte et al. (2022) conducted a cohort in Low-income adolescents at risk for environmental and social disadvantage (n=229). Environmental toxins (PM2.5, drinking water contaminants) and social disadvantage vs. Lower cumulative exposure to environmental toxins and social disadvantage was evaluated on Autonomic nervous system functioning (autonomic balance and autonomic regulation via RSA and SCR) at rest and during a social exclusion challenge. Greater cumulative exposure to water and air pollution from ages 10-16 was associated with altered patterns of autonomic functioning, specifically higher sympathetic dominance.
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