Abstract Body

Background: Growing evidence suggests that exposure to nature is associated with improved childhood health and development, but the impact of different types of natural environments remains relatively unexplored.

Objectives: This study investigated the association between lifetime residential exposure to urban natural environments and early childhood development and evaluated whether associations differed according to land cover type.

Methods: In a large population-based birth cohort (n=27,760) in Metro Vancouver, Canada, early childhood development was assessed via the Early Development Instrument (EDI). The EDI is a teacher-rated survey that measures children’s ability to meet age-appropriate developmental expectations in kindergarten (mean age = 5.6 years). We used a high-resolution land cover dataset to evaluate five different types of environments: coniferous trees, deciduous trees, grass-herbs, paved surfaces, and buildings. The former three classes were also combined to create an aggregated vegetation class. Lifetime residential exposure (from birth to time of EDI assessment) was calculated as the mean of annual percentage values of each land cover type, including aggregated vegetation, within a 250 m buffer of participants’ postal code centroid. Multilevel modeling was used to analyse associations between respective land cover classes and early childhood development.

Results: In adjusted models, higher levels of lifetime residential exposure to aggregated vegetation were associated with increased total EDI score, indicating benefits to early childhood development. Higher exposure to deciduous trees was positively associated with total EDI score, whereas no associations were found for exposure to other vegetation types. Higher exposure to buildings and paved surfaces was adversely associated with total EDI score.

Conclusions: Higher levels of lifetime residential exposure to natural environments may promote healthy childhood development, while built-up environments may have a negative impact. Results suggest that type of natural environment should be considered in future research on health-promoting aspects of nature and, if confirmed, our findings can help optimise urban design efforts to support childhood development, with potential health benefits across the life course.