Skip to main content

Early-Life Social and Economic Adversities on Health

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Early-life Environmental Exposure and Disease

Abstract

This chapter addresses how environmental exposures interact with poverty and other social factors in the first 1000 days of life influence children’s health throughout the life course. These have a direct adverse effect on health through infection, growth, and brain development, as well as interacting with the indirect effects of social factors such as poor quality housing and dense population. Key concepts such as the life course approach, social determinants of health, and health inequity are described. These concepts and their relevance to environmental health and disease are explained through applied examples in pollution and health. Efforts should be borne to intervene during early life to reduce burden of disease both in childhood and in later life.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Landrigan PJ, Fuller R, Acosta NJR et al (2018) The lancet commission on pollution and health. Lancet 391(10119):462–512

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. United Nations. Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. In: Assembly G, ed. Vol 12015

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pearce A, Dundas R, Whitehead M, Taylor-Robinson D (2019) Pathways to inequalities in child health. Arch Dis Child 104(10):998–1003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Marmot M (2015) The health gap: the challenge of an unequal world. Lancet 386(10011):2442–2444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Kuh D, Ben-Shlomo Y, Lynch J, Hallqvist J, Power C (2003) Life course epidemiology. J Epidemiol Community Health 57(10):778–783

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Georgiadis A, Penny ME (2017) Child undernutrition: opportunities beyond the first 1000 days. Lancet Public Health 2(9):e399

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Spencer N (2018) The social determinants of child health. Paediatr Child Health 28(3):138–143

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. https://childmortality.org/. Published 2019. Accessed

  9. The Global Burden of Disease Collaborative (2018) Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet 392(10159):1736–178

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hutain J, Perry HB, Koffi AK et al (2019) Engaging communities in collecting and using results from verbal autopsies for child deaths: an example from urban slums in Freetown, Sierra Leone. J Glob Health 9(1):010419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Macarthy JC A, Sellu S, Heinrich L. (2018) Health impacts of the living conditions of people residing in informal settlements in Freetown

    Google Scholar 

  12. November L, Sandall J (2018) ‘Just because she’s young, it doesn’t mean she has to die’: exploring the contributing factors to high maternal mortality in adolescents in Eastern Freetown; a qualitative study. Reprod Health 15(1):31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Cohen AJ, Brauer M, Burnett R et al (2017) Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution: an analysis of data from the global burden of diseases study 2015. Lancet 389(10082):1907–1918

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Nhung NTT, Amini H, Schindler C et al (2017) Short-term association between ambient air pollution and pneumonia in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis of time-series and case-crossover studies. Environ Pollut 230:1000–1008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lelieveld J, Haines A, Pozzer A (2018) Age-dependent health risk from ambient air pollution: a modelling and data analysis of childhood mortality in middle-income and low-income countries. Lancet Planet Health 2(7):e292–e300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Liu NM, Grigg J (2018) Diesel, children and respiratory disease. BMJ Paediatrics Open 2(1):e000210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Bates MN, Chandyo RK, Valentiner-Branth P et al (2013) Acute lower respiratory infection in childhood and household fuel use in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Environ Health Perspect 121(5):637–642

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Gordon SB, Bruce NG, Grigg J et al (2014) Respiratory risks from household air pollution in low and middle income countries. Lancet Respir Med 2(10):823–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Simkovich SM, Goodman D, Roa C et al (2019) The health and social implications of household air pollution and respiratory diseases. NPJ Prim Care Respir Med 29(1):12–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Whitehead M (1992) The concepts and principles of equity and health. Int J Health Serv 22(3):429–445

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. UNICEF (2019) Progress for every child in the SDG Era: are we on track to achieve the SDGs for children? The situation in 2019

    Google Scholar 

  22. UN-HABITAT (2006) The Improvement of Slums and Informal Settlements in Freetown

    Google Scholar 

  23. Diderichsen F, Evans T, Whitehead M (2001) The social basis of disparities in health. In: Evans T (ed) Challenging inequities in health from ethics to action. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Omar Ben Forge Risk .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Risk, O.B.F., Tun, H., Manikam, L., Lakhanpaul, M. (2020). Early-Life Social and Economic Adversities on Health. In: Xia, Y. (eds) Early-life Environmental Exposure and Disease. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3797-4_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics