Amine, InesAnguita Ruiz, AugustoCasas Sanahuja, MaribelCastro, Montserrat deGarcía Aymerich, JudithJulvez, JordiLópez Vicente, Mònica, 1988-Maitre, LéaNieuwenhuijsen, Mark J.Stratakis, NikosBasagaña Flores, XavierVrijheid, MartineSiroux, Valérie2023-11-082023-11-082023Amine I, Guillien A, Philippat C, Anguita-Ruiz A, Casas M, de Castro M, et al. Environmental exposures in early-life and general health in childhood. Environ Health. 2023 Jul 21;22(1):53. DOI: 10.1186/s12940-023-01001-x1476-069Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/58229Background: Early-life environmental exposures are suspected to be involved in the development of chronic diseases later in life. Most studies conducted so far considered single or few exposures and single-health parameter. Our study aimed to identify a childhood general health score and assess its association with a wide range of pre- and post-natal environmental exposures. Methods: The analysis is based on 870 children (6-12 years) from six European birth cohorts participating in the Human Early-Life Exposome project. A total of 53 prenatal and 105 childhood environmental factors were considered, including lifestyle, social, urban and chemical exposures. We built a general health score by averaging three sub-scores (cardiometabolic, respiratory/allergy and mental) built from 15 health parameters. By construct, a child with a low score has a low general health status. Penalized multivariable regression through Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) was fitted in order to identify exposures associated with the general health score. Findings: The results of LASSO show that a lower general health score was associated with maternal passive and active smoking during pregnancy and postnatal exposure to methylparaben, copper, indoor air pollutants, high intake of caffeinated drinks and few contacts with friends and family. Higher child's general health score was associated with prenatal exposure to a bluespace near residency and postnatal exposures to pets, cobalt, high intakes of vegetables and more physical activity. Against our hypotheses, postnatal exposure to organochlorine compounds and perfluorooctanoate were associated with a higher child's general health score. Conclusion: By using a general health score summarizing the child cardiometabolic, respiratory/allergy and mental health, this study reinforced previously suspected environmental factors associated with various child health parameters (e.g. tobacco, air pollutants) and identified new factors (e.g. pets, bluespace) warranting further investigations.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12940-023-01001-xCardiometabolic risk factorsChildCohort studiesEnvironmentExposomeGeneral health statusMultimorbidityNeurodevelopmentPregnancyRespiratory diseasesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess