Association of Local Variation in Neighborhood Disadvantage in Metropolitan Areas With Youth Neurocognition and Brain Structure

Abstract

IMPORTANCE Neighborhood disadvantage is an important social determinant of health in childhood and adolescence. Less is known about the association of neighborhood disadvantage with youth neurocognition and brain structure, and particularly whether associations are similar across metropolitan areas and are attributed to local differences in disadvantage.OBJECTIVE To test whether neighborhood disadvantage is associated with youth neurocognitive performance and with global and regional measures of brain structure after adjusting for family socioeconomic status and perceptions of neighborhood characteristics, and to assess whether these associations (1) are pervasive or limited, (2) vary across metropolitan areas, and (3) are attributed to local variation in disadvantage within metropolitan areas. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This cross-sectional study analyzed baseline data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a cohort study conducted at 21 sites across the US. Participants were children aged 9.00 to 10.99 years at enrollment. They and their parent or caregiver completed a baseline visit between October 1, 2016, and October 31, 2018. EXPOSURES Neighborhood disadvantage factor based on US census tract characteristics. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Neurocognition was measured with the NIH ToolboxCognition Battery, and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess whole-brain and regional measures of structure. Linear mixed-effects models examined the association between neighborhood disadvantage and outcomes after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. RESULTSOf the 11 875 children in the ABCD Study cohort, 8598 children (72.4%) were included in this analysis. The study sample had a mean (SD) age of 118.8 (7.4) months and included 4526 boys (52.6%). Every 1-unit increase in the neighborhood disadvantage factor was associated with lower performance on 6 of 7 subtests, such as Flanker Inhibitory Control and Attention (unstandardized Β = −0.5; 95% CI, −0.7 to −0.2; false discovery rate (FDR)-corrected P = .001) and List Sorting Working Memory (unstandardized Β = −0.7; 95% CI, −1.0 to −0.3; FDR-corrected P < .001), as well as on all composite measures of neurocognition, such as the Total Cognition Composite (unstandardized Β = −0.7; 95% CI, −0.9 to −0.5; FDR-corrected P < .001). Each 1-unit increase in neighborhood disadvantage was associated with lower whole-brain cortical surface area (unstandardized Β = −692.6 mm 2 ; 95% CI, −1154.9 to −230.4 mm 2 ; FDR-corrected P = .007) and subcortical volume (unstandardized Β = −113.9 mm 3 ; 95% CI, −198.5 to −29.4 mm 3 ; FDR-corrected P = .03) as well as with regional surface area differences, primarily in the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. Associations largely remained after adjusting for perceptions of neighborhood safety and were both consistent across metropolitan areas and primarily explained by local variation in each area.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This study found that, in the US, local variation in neighborhood disadvant...

Socioeconomic status, BMI, and brain development in children

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Early Childhood Reading for Pleasure: Evidence from the ABCD Study for Benefits to Cognitive Performance and Mental Health and Associated Changes in Brain Structure

“…Association study Linear mixed-effects model (LMM) analyses were applied to identify the relationships between early RfP, brain structure, and a wide range of behavioural assessments, including cognition and psychiatric scores. The LMM model was recommended by the ABCD research consortium and has been used in several related studies (43)(44)(45) to consider the correlated observations within family structures due to siblings and twins and at different sites. In this study, LMM was performed using the fitlme function in MATLAB (R2019b, MathWorks), which was specialized to model families nested within sites.…”

The Exposome and its Associations with Broad Mental and Physical Health Measures in Early Adolescence

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