Early-life exposure to ambient air pollutants and kidney function in adolescents: a cohort study based on the 'Children of 1997' Hong Kong birth cohort.

Air pollution is increasingly linked to impaired kidney function in adults. However, little is known about how early-life exposure to air pollutants affects kidney function in adolescents. Cohort study. We leveraged data from the 'Children of 1997' Hong Kong population-representative birth cohort (N = 8327). Residential exposure to average ambient levels of four air pollutants, including inhalable particle (PM 10), sulfur dioxide (SO 2), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2), and nitrogen monoxide (NO), during in utero , infancy, and childhood periods was estimated using the inverse distance weighting. Kidney function was assessed using estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) calculated from age-adjusted equations for adolescents. Generalized linear regression was used to examine the association of air pollutant exposure in each period with kidney function at 17.6 years. Two-pollutant models tested the robustness of the association. Of the 3350 participants included, 51.4% were boys. Exposure to PM 10 was associated with poorer kidney function. Each interquartile range increment in PM 10 was inversely associated with eGFR (β: −2.933, 95% confidence interval −4.677 to −1.189) in utero , −2.362 (−3.992 to −0.732) infancy, −2.708 (−4.370 to −1.047) childhood, and −2.828 (−4.409 to −1.247) overall. Exposure to PM 10 and SO 2 in utero had a stronger inverse association with kidney function in males. The associations were robust to PM 10 exposure in two-pollutant models. Our findings suggest that early-life exposure to ambient PM 10 and SO 2 is associated with reduced kidney function in adolescents, especially exposure in utero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]