Residential Greenness and Birthweight in the State of Massachusetts, USA

Kelvin C. Fong, Itai Kloog, Brent A. Coull, Petros Koutrakis, Francine Laden, Joel D. Schwartz and Peter James
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Kelvin C. Fong: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Itai Kloog: Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 653, Israel
Brent A. Coull: Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Petros Koutrakis: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Francine Laden: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Joel D. Schwartz: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Peter James: Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Natural vegetation, or greenness, may benefit maternal health and consequently, fetal growth, by providing opportunities for physical activity and psychological restoration, and decreasing detrimental environmental exposures. We retrieved Massachusetts Birth Registry data from 2001–2013 and investigated the association between residential greenness and birthweight in full-term births (≥37 weeks gestation). We calculated average residential greenness during pregnancy using 250 m normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from satellites. We estimated associations between greenness and continuous birthweight, term low birthweight (TLBW: <2500 g), and small for gestational age (SGA: <10th percentile of birthweight stratified by sex and gestational age) adjusted for individual and neighborhood covariates and considered nonlinearity and effect modification. Higher greenness exposure was associated with higher birthweight with stronger associations in the lower than higher range of greenness. Greenness was associated with lower odds of TLBW (OR 0.98; 95% CI 0.97, 0.99 per 0.1 increase in NDVI) and SGA (OR 0.98; 95% 0.97, 0.99) and associations varied by population density (TLBW) and socioeconomic status (TLBW, SGA). Our results suggest that greenness is beneficial to fetal growth exhibited by higher birthweight and lower odds of TLBW and SGA. Unlike prior studies, associations with TLBW and SGA appeared stronger among those with higher socioeconomic status.

Keywords: natural environment; greenness; health inequities; birth outcomes; birthweight; prenatal exposure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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