Impact of early life exposure to heat and cold on linguistic development in two-year-old children: findings from the ELFE cohort study
2025
Barbalat, Guillaume | Guilbert, Ariane | Adelaïde, Lucie | Charles, Marie-Aline | Hough, Ian | Launay, Ludivine | Kloog, Itai | Lepeule, Johanna | Institute for Advanced Biosciences / Institut pour l'Avancée des Biosciences (Grenoble) (IAB) ; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire [CHU Grenoble] (CHUGA)-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM)-Etablissement français du sang - Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (EFS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) | Institut des sciences cognitives Marc Jeannerod - Centre de neuroscience cognitive - UMR5229 (ISC-MJ) ; Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Santé publique France - French National Public Health Agency [Saint-Maurice, France] | Etude longitudinale française depuis l'enfance (UMS : Ined-Inserm-EFS) (ELFE) ; Institut national d'études démographiques (INED)-EFS-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) | Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE) ; Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (Fédération OSUG)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP) ; Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) | Unité de recherche interdisciplinaire pour la prévention et le traitement des cancers (ANTICIPE) ; Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN) ; Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-CHU Caen Normandie – Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Caen Normandie (CHU Caen Normandie) ; Normandie Université (NU)-Tumorothèque de Caen Basse-Normandie (TCBN)-Tumorothèque de Caen Basse-Normandie (TCBN)-Centre Régional de Lutte contre le Cancer François Baclesse [Caen] (UNICANCER/CRLC) ; Normandie Université (NU)-UNICANCER-Tumorothèque de Caen Basse-Normandie (TCBN)-UNICANCER-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) | Université de Caen Normandie - UFR Santé (UNICAEN Santé) ; Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN) ; Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU) | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai [New York] (MSSM) | ANR-15-IDEX-0002,UGA,IDEX UGA(2015) | ANR-23-CE36-0002,Heat-4P,Exposition à la chaleur pendant la grossesse et santé périnatale: facteurs de vulnérabilité, mécanismes physiopathologiques, et effets à long terme(2023)
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. Background: A number of negative developmental outcomes in response to extreme temperature have been documented. Yet, to our knowledge, environmental research has left the question of the effect of temperature on human neurodevelopment largely unexplored. Here, we aimed to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on linguistic development at the age of 2 years-old.Methods: We used data from the prospective national French birth cohort ELFE (N = 12,163) and highly-resolved exposure models with daily temporal resolution and 200 m to 1 km spatial resolution. We investigated the effect of weekly averages of overall, daytime and night-time temperature in the prenatal (first 30 weeks of gestation) and postnatal (91 weeks after birth) period on vocabulary production scores from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI) at 2 years-old. Exposure-response and lag-response relationships were modeled with confounder-adjusted distributed lag non-linear models. Results: Scores at the MB-CDI decreased by 3.2% (relative risk (RR) 0.968, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.939-0.998) following exposure to severe night-time heat of 15.6 °C (95th percentile) vs. 8.3 °C (median) throughout gestational weeks 14 to 19. In the postnatal period, scores at the MB-CDI decreased by 14.8% (RR 0.852; 95% CI: [0.756-0.96]) for severe overall heat of 21.9 °C (95th percentile) vs. 11.5 °C (median) throughout weeks 1 to 28. Consistent results were found for daytime and night-time heat. We observed positive effects of overall and night-time heat in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Night-time cold in the pre-natal period also resulted in improved scores at the MB-CDI. Adjusting our models for air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10 and NO2) tended to confirm these observations. Finally, there were no significant differences in temperature effects between boys and girls.Conclusion: In this large cohort study, we showed a negative impact of hot temperatures during pregnancy and after birth on language acquisition. Positive associations observed in the first few weeks of pregnancy are likely the results of methodological artifacts. Positive associations with night-time cold during the prenatal period are likely truly protective, as colder temperatures may encourage staying indoors at a comfortable temperature. Policymakers should consider neurodevelopment impairments as a deleterious effect of climate change.
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