High temperature and mental health in 3.3 million adults living in Barcelona metropolitan area: a 12-year time series analysis of primary care data.

Extreme temperatures and mental health are both public health concerns. Yet, evidence on the impact of extreme temperature on mental health is still scarce. Here, we studied the short-term association between daily temperatures and the risk of a primary care diagnoses, medication prescription and sick leaves for anxiety and depression.

Windows of susceptibility of prenatal and childhood exposure to air pollution and lung function at 6-8 years in the Spanish INMA (INfancia y Medio Ambiente) birth cohort.

Background: Air pollution exposure during pregnancy and childhood has been linked to lung development deficits in children, however, few studies have identified potential windows of susceptibility to air pollution exposure from conception to early childhood on lung function.

Objectives: To identify potential windows of susceptibility to the effects of prenatal and childhood exposure to air pollution and lung function.

Methods: We included 1029 mother-child pairs from the INMA (INfancia y Medio Ambiente) birth cohort.

Early-life exposome and health-related immune signatures in childhood.

Background: Early-life environmental exposures are suspected to modify important immune processes related to child health. Yet, no study has investigated immunotoxicity in relation to the exposome and multiple health domains simultaneously.

Methods: Among 845 children (median age 8) from six European birth cohorts included in the Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) project, we identified immune signatures of a health score covering cardiometabolic, respiratory/allergic and neurodevelopmental health in children.

Occupational health in the era of climate change and the green transition: a call for research.

Work and working conditions are fundamental social determinants of health. Climate change poses an urgent and growing threat to workers' health, through both direct exposure to environmental hazards and indirect exacerbation of social and health inequalities. Occupational health, which focusses on the promotion of mental and physical health and well-being of workers, is a key but often overlooked area in this context.

Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study.

Background: There is a scarcity of evidence of the influence of exposure to air pollution during pregnancy on the human fetal brain characterised prenatally. We aimed to evaluate the association of exposure to air pollution with fetal brain morphology.

Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we used data from the Barcelona Life Study Cohort, Spain, which recruited 1080 pregnant women at 8-14 weeks of gestation between Oct 16, 2018, and April 14, 2021, from three major university hospitals in Barcelona.

Maternal prenatal nut and seafood consumption and child neuropsychological function from 4 to 15 years of age: a population-based cohort study.

Background: Understanding the role of maternal diet in early brain development is critical, as pregnancy represents a period of significant vulnerability and growth for the developing brain.

Objectives: This study aims to assess the association between maternal nuts, total seafood, and large fatty fish consumption during pregnancy and offspring neuropsychological function ≤15 y, considering the potential mediation of omega-3 fatty acids.

Methods: This study was part of The Spanish Childhood and Environment birth cohort, following 1737 mother-child pairs from pregnancy to age 15.

Regional changes in temperature-related mortality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a continental modelling analysis in 805 European regions.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted usual seasonal mortality patterns, creating challenges in assessing temperature-related mortality. While previous studies explored the effect of temperature on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, few examined its relationship with mortality during the pandemic, often excluding COVID-19 deaths or relying on pre-pandemic models. In this study, we developed an innovative methodological framework that accounts for COVID-19 waves, allowing us to estimate changes in the short-term effects of temperature on mortality and assess the role of adaptation and maladaptation before and after the onset of the pandemic.

Multi-omics architecture of childhood obesity and metabolic dysfunction uncovers biological pathways and prenatal determinants.

Childhood obesity poses a significant public health challenge, yet the molecular intricacies underlying its pathobiology remain elusive. Leveraging extensive multi-omics profiling (methylome, miRNome, transcriptome, proteins and metabolites) and a rich phenotypic characterization across two parts of Europe within the population-based Human Early Life Exposome project, we unravel the molecular landscape of childhood obesity and associated metabolic dysfunction. Our integrative analysis uncovers three clusters of children defined by specific multi-omics profiles, one of which characterized not only by higher adiposity but also by a high degree of metabolic complications.

Ambient temperature and dengue hospitalization in Brazil: A 10-year period case time series analysis.

Background: Dengue has an increased worldwide epidemic potential with the global rising temperature due to climate change. Heat and rainfall are known to influence seasonal patterns of dengue transmission over the course of weeks to months. However, there is a gap in knowledge about the short-term effect of heat on dengue severity.

Long-term exposure to air pollution and lower respiratory infections in a large population-based adult cohort in Catalonia.

Background: Evidence is limited regarding the role of air pollution in acute lower respiratory infections among adults. We assessed the influence of long-term air pollution exposure on hospital admission for lower respiratory infections and whether there are vulnerable subgroups.

Methods: We used a populational cohort in Catalonia, Spain, comprising 3,817,820 adults residing in Catalonia as of January 1, 2015.

Childhood exposure to non-persistent endocrine disruptors, glucocorticosteroids, and attentional function: A cross-sectional study based on the parametric g-formula.

Background: Evidence suggests that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may perturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, which has a major role in brain development. We aimed to evaluate the effects of childhood exposure to organophosphate pesticides, phenols, and phthalate metabolites, on urinary glucocorticosteroids and inattention in childhood.

Methods: We used data from the Human Early-Life Exposome (HELIX) cohort (2013-2016) and the parametric g-formula to estimate associations between EDCs, glucocorticosteroids, and hit reaction time standard error (HRT-SE), a measure of inattention, and tested for possible effect modification by sex.

Unbiased temperature-related mortality estimates using weekly and monthly health data: a new method for environmental epidemiology and climate impact studies.

Background: Exposure to environmental factors has a high burden on human health, with millions of premature annual deaths associated with the short-term health effects of ambient temperatures and air pollution. However, direct estimations of exposure-related mortality from real data are still not available in most parts of the world, especially in low-resource settings, due to the unavailability of daily health records to calibrate epidemiological models.

Methods: In this study, we have filled the crucial gap in available direct estimations by developing a method to make valid inference for the relationship between exposure and response data that uses only exposure and temporally aggregated response data.

Development of land use regression, dispersion, and hybrid models for prediction of outdoor air pollution exposure in Barcelona.

Background: Air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for health. Assessing outdoor air pollution exposure with detailed spatial and temporal variability in urban areas is crucial for evaluating its health effects.

Aim: We developed and compared Land Use Regression (LUR), dispersion (DM), and hybrid (HM) models to estimate outdoor concentrations for NO, PM, black carbon (BC), and PM (Fe, Cu, Zn) in Barcelona.

Health impact assessment of port-sourced air pollution in Barcelona.

Introduction: Air pollution is a major health risk factor. Ports might be an understudied source of air pollution.

Methods: We conducted a spatial health impact assessment (HIA) of port-sourced air pollution for Barcelona for 2017 at the neighbourhood level.

Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and the role of adaptation in protecting health.

The year of 2023 was the warmest on record globally and the second warmest in Europe. Here we applied epidemiological models to temperature and mortality records in 823 contiguous regions from 35 countries to estimate sex- and age-specific heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and to quantify the mortality burden avoided by societal adaptation to rising temperatures since the year 2000. We estimated 47,690 (95% confidence interval 28,853 to 66,525) heat-related deaths in 2023, the second highest mortality burden during the study period 2015-2023, only surpassed by 2022.

Integrating Multi-Omics with environmental data for precision health: A novel analytic framework and case study on prenatal mercury induced childhood fatty liver disease.

Background: Precision Health aims to revolutionize disease prevention by leveraging information across multiple omic datasets (multi-omics). However, existing methods generally do not consider personalized environmental risk factors (e.g.

Machine learning-based health environmental-clinical risk scores in European children.

Background: Early life environmental stressors play an important role in the development of multiple chronic disorders. Previous studies that used environmental risk scores (ERS) to assess the cumulative impact of environmental exposures on health are limited by the diversity of exposures included, especially for early life determinants. We used machine learning methods to build early life exposome risk scores for three health outcomes using environmental, molecular, and clinical data.

Prenatal Exposure to Chemical Mixtures and Metabolic Syndrome Risk in Children.

Importance: Prenatal exposure to ubiquitous endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may increase the risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in children, but few studies have studied chemical mixtures or explored underlying protein and metabolic signatures.

Objective: To investigate associations of prenatal exposure to EDC mixtures with MetS risk score in children and identify associated proteins and metabolites.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This population-based, birth cohort study used data collected between April 1, 2003, and February 26, 2016, from the Human Early Life Exposome cohort based in France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, and the UK.

Early-life external exposome in children 2-5 years old in Colombia.

Exposome studies are advancing in high-income countries to understand how multiple environmental exposures impact health. However, there is a significant research gap in low- and middle-income and tropical countries. We aimed to describe the spatiotemporal variation of the external exposome, its correlation structure between and within exposure groups, and its dimensionality.

A systematic review of ambient heat and sleep in a warming climate.

Climate change is elevating nighttime and daytime temperatures worldwide, affecting a broad continuum of behavioral and health outcomes. Disturbed sleep is a plausible pathway linking rising ambient temperatures with several observed adverse human responses shown to increase during hot weather. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature investigating the relationship between ambient temperature and valid sleep outcomes measured in real-world settings, globally.

Short-term exposure to air pollution and hospital admission after COVID-19 in Catalonia: the COVAIR-CAT study.

Background: A growing body of evidence has reported positive associations between long-term exposure to air pollution and poor COVID-19 outcomes. Inconsistent findings have been reported for short-term air pollution, mostly from ecological study designs. Using individual-level data, we studied the association between short-term variation in air pollutants [nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter with a diameter of <2.

Who is more vulnerable to effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on COVID-19 hospitalisation?

Objective: Factors that shape individuals' vulnerability to the effects of air pollution on COVID-19 severity remain poorly understood. We evaluated whether the association between long-term exposure to ambient NO, PM, and PM and COVID-19 hospitalisation differs by age, sex, individual income, area-level socioeconomic status, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Methods: We analysed a population-based cohort of 4,639,184 adults in Catalonia, Spain, during 2020.