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Air pollution mixture exposure during pregnancy and postpartum psychological functioning: racial/ethnic- and fetal sex-specific associations

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology volume 35, pages 548–556 (2025)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Prenatal air pollution (AP) exposure has been linked to postpartum psychological functioning, impacting health outcomes in both women and children. Extant studies primarily focused on individual pollutants.

Objective

To assess the association between prenatal exposure to a mixture of seven AP components and postpartum psychological functioning using daily exposure data and data-driven statistical methods.

Methods

Analyses included 981 women recruited at 24.0 ± 9.9 weeks gestation and followed longitudinally. We estimated prenatal daily exposure levels for constituents of fine particles [elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), nitrate (NO3−), sulfate (SO42−), ammonium (NH4+)], nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) using validated global 3-D chemical-transport models and satellite-based hybrid models based on residential addresses. Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was administered to participants to derive a total EPDS score and the subconstruct scores for anhedonia and depressive symptoms. A distributed lag model (DLM) was employed within Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression (BKMR) to develop time-weighted exposure profile for each pollutant. These exposures were then input into a Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) regression to estimate an overall mixture effect, adjusted for maternal age, education, race/ethnicity, season of delivery, and delivery year. Effect modification by race/ethnicity and fetal sex was also examined.

Results

Women were primarily Hispanic (51%) and Black (32%) reporting ≤12 years of education (58%). Prenatal exposure to an AP mixture was significantly associated with increased anhedonia subscale z-scores, particularly in Hispanics (β = 0.07, 95%CI = 0.004–0.13, per unit increase in WQS index). It was also borderline associated with increased total EPDS (β = 0.11, 95%CI = 0.00–0.22) and depressive symptom subscale (β = 0.09, 95%CI = −0.02 to 0.19) z-scores, particularly among Hispanic women who gave birth to a male infant. Sulfate (SO42−), O3 and OC were major contributors to these associations.

Impact

  • This study utilizes an advanced data-driven approach to examine the temporally- and mixture-weighted effects of prenatal air pollution exposure on postpartum psychological functioning. We found that exposure to a prenatal air pollution mixture predicted poorer postpartum psychological functioning, particularly anhedonia symptoms in Hispanic women. Findings underscore the importance of considering both exposure mixtures as well as potential modifying factors to better help identify particular pollutants that drive effects and susceptible populations, which can inform more effective intervention strategies.

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Fig. 1: Predicted exposure levels of each component of AP mixture averaged across pregnancy for the study participants.
Fig. 2: Race/ethnicity- and fetal sex-specific associations between the prenatal AP mixture and EPDS outcomes.

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Data availability

The data presented in this study are available from the author on reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to their containing confidential and protected health information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

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Acknowledgements

The Asthma Coalition on Community, Environment, and Social Stress (ACCESS) and PRogramming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) projects have been funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01 HL095606, R01 ES010932, U01 HL072494, R01 HL080674, R01 MD006086, and UG3 OD023337; phenotyping and/or statistical support was funded by P30 ES000002, P30 ES023515, and UL1 TR004419.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Medicine and Climate Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Yueh-Hsiu Mathilda Chiu, Hsiao-Hsien Leon Hsu, Elena Colicino, Robert O. Wright & Rosalind J. Wright

  2. Department of Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Yueh-Hsiu Mathilda Chiu, Naim Xhani & Rosalind J. Wright

  3. The Institute for Climate Change, Environmental Health, and Exposomics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Yueh-Hsiu Mathilda Chiu, Hsiao-Hsien Leon Hsu, Elena Colicino, Robert O. Wright & Rosalind J. Wright

  4. Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Brent A. Coull & Joel Schwartz

  5. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Brent A. Coull

  6. Department of Statistics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

    Ander Wilson

  7. Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Farida Nentin & Barbara C. Deli

  8. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Joel Schwartz

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Contributions

Chiu YHM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Data Curation, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft. Coull BA: Methodology, Software, Writing - Review & Editing. Wilson A: Methodology, Software, Writing - Review & Editing. Hsu HHL: Methodology, Formal Analysis, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft. Xhani N: Data Curation. Nentin F: Investigation. Deli BC: Investigation. Schwartz J: Resources, Writing - Review & Editing. Colicino E: Methodology, Software, Writing - Review & Editing. Wright RO: Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing. Wright RJ: Supervision, Funding Acquisition, Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Project Administration, Writing - Original Draft.

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Correspondence to Yueh-Hsiu Mathilda Chiu.

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All study protocols were reviewed and approved by the Program for the Protection of Human Subjects at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for the ACCESS project (IRB#12-00661) and the PRISM project (IRB#12-00875). Informed written consent was obtained from all participants. The authors confirm that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards as outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki.

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Chiu, YH.M., Coull, B.A., Wilson, A. et al. Air pollution mixture exposure during pregnancy and postpartum psychological functioning: racial/ethnic- and fetal sex-specific associations. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 35, 548–556 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-024-00726-2

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