“Urban-Satellite” estimates in the ABCD Study: Linking Neuroimaging and Mental Health to Satellite Imagery Measurements of Macro Environmental Factors

Abstract

While numerous studies over the last decade have highlighted the important influence of environmental factors on mental health, globally applicable data on physical surroundings are still limited. Access to such data and the possibility to link them to epidemiological studies is critical to unlocking the relationship of environment, brain and behaviour and promoting positive future mental health outcomes. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study is the largest ongoing longitudinal and observational study exploring brain development and child health among children from 21 sites across the United States. Here we describe the linking of the ABCD study data with satellite-based “Urban-Satellite” (UrbanSat) variables consisting of 11 satellite-data derived environmental indicators associated with each subject’s residential address at their baseline visit, including land cover and land use, nighttime lights, and population characteristics. We present these UrbanSat variables and provide a review of the current literature that links environmental indicators with mental health, as well as key aspects that must be considered when using satellite data for mental health research. We also highlight and discuss significant links of the satellite data variables to the default mode network clustering coefficient and cognition. This comprehensive dataset provides the foundation for large-scale environmental epidemiology research.

Building Towards an Adolescent Neural Urbanome: Expanding Environmental Measures using Linked External Data (LED) in the ABCD Study

“…The Curated Release 5.1 also includes remote-sensing satellite measures necessary to compute the UrbanSat Index, as described in Xu et al (2022) and Goldblatt et al (2023). UrbanSat, an estimate of urbanicity, was derived using various metrics from the Google Earth Engine (GEE) and the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) such as builtup land use, cropland use, forest land use, grassland use, nighttime lights, and population density.…”

Closing the loop between environment, brain and mental health: how far we might go in real-life assessments?

“…Aided by internal and external sensing devices, they have the potential to combine objective physical measurements with subjective mental states of participants. Secondly, more and more environmental data is being made publicly available [11 ▪ ]. Individual exposures to climate and weather conditions as well as noise and air pollution can be assessed with high temporal and, if aided by GPS, spatial granularity.…”