Air pollution could be hindering development in schoolchildren, a new study has found.
Researchers in Spain have found that traffic-related pollution is correlated to slower cognitive improvements among seven-to-10-year-olds in Barcelona.
The findings, published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, compared schools in high-traffic areas to those farther removed from the downtown core and busy streets.
After measuring the progress of 2,715 students over a 12-month-period, researchers concluded that those studying in schools with increased traffic-related pollution saw significantly less improvement in working memory and attentiveness.
“The findings provide strong support for air pollution being a developmental neurotoxicant and point toward the primary school age as a particularly vulnerable time window for executive function development,” according to the study.
After taking tests designed to measure cognitive performances several times throughout the year, students from the participating 39 schools saw an overall improvement in each category. In less polluted schools, however, researchers found an 11.5 per cent increase in working memory over the year, compared to just a 7.4 per cent improvement at highly polluted schools.
Researchers also found students in highly polluted schools improved less when taking a more advanced memory test and when being measured for inattentiveness.
The study, led by Jordi Sunyer of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, also took into account other socioeconomic factors such as parental education and whether parents smoked at home. It notes that traffic-related pollution has previously been linked with cognitive delays in infants.
“The findings suggest that the developing brain may be vulnerable to traffic-related air pollution well into middle childhood,” the study concludes.
“Reduced cognitive development in children attending the most polluted schools might result in a disadvantage in mental capital, which may have long-lasting life course effects.”
