Early environmental quality and life-course mental health effects: The Equal-Life project

There is increasing evidence that a complex interplay of factors within children's environments, including environmental noise, contributes to mental ill-health and suboptimal cognitive development later on in life. The concept of the life-course exposome helps to study the impact of the physical (e.g., acoustic) and social environment on cognitive development and mental health in young people over time. Equal-Life develops and tests combined exposures. Data from eleven studies (N=240.000) linked to exposure data will provide insights and policy guidance into aspects of physical and social exposures hitherto untapped at different scale levels and timeframes while accounting for social inequities. Exposure assessment combines GIS-based environmental indicators with omics approaches and new data sources, forming the early-life exposome. Statistical tools integrate data at different spatial and temporal granularity and combine exploratory machine learning models with hypothesis-driven causal modeling. Equal-Life contributes to the exposome concept by 1) integrating the internal, physical and social exposomes, 2) studying life-course effects on a child's development and mental health, 3) characterizing the child's environment at different stages and in different activity spaces, 4) looking at supportive environments for child development, rather than merely pollutants, 5) combining physical, social indicators with novel effect markers.