Urban environment and puberty onset: a population-based birth cohort study (DataSHEILD)

The current project aims to explore the influence of the in-utero and childhood urban exposome, namely the surrounding environment, on pubertal onset and development.
The cohorts considered for the study do not use the same instrument to assess the stage of puberty, and both PDS and TANNER are not harmonized in the Datashield yet. We propose to use Maturity Offset as a proxy to evaluate puberty development because it has been proposed as a measure of children’s development of biological maturity. The following equations will be considered to predict Maturity offset:
Girls: -7.709133 + (0.0042232 x (age x stature))
Boys: -7.999994+ (0.0036124 x (age x stature))
In addition, sub-analyses will be performed using PDS or TANNER to broaden the understanding of the impact of the urban exposome both in puberty onset and development.
Urban environment exposures of interest: air pollution, natural spaces, built environment, social context, traffic, noise, unhealthy food environment, and meteorology. These indicators have been developed for the whole pregnancy period, at birth, and each year after birth.
All children with information on environmental variables during pregnancy and the first years of life (>0 and ?2 years) and the child’s height and weight information between 7 and 14 years will be considered in the analysis.