Breathing unequally: Air pollution, child development and the reproduction of social inequality; evidence from France – BREATHE

Air pollution has emerged as a key environmental and health issue, linked to about 6.5 million annual deaths worldwide. Increasingly, the literature has also documented impacts on all organ systems, including brain development. Of particular concern is its impact on children and disadvantaged populations, who face both heightened exposure and increased vulnerability. Therefore, this project aims to investigate the impact of air pollution on child cognitive and socio-emotional development in France across time and space, and to better understand the role of these pollutants in producing socio-economic inequalities in child development. Our project brings several conceptual innovations to this literature. First, air pollution co-occurs with other disadvantages, noise pollution, neighborhood characteristics etc., which are often unexplored by the literature. We will incorporate these factors in our conceptual and empirical models, both to estimate a cleaner effect of air pollution on child development, and to assess the cumulative disadvantages faced by children. Second, our data and methods allow applying a lifecourse framework to study dynamics and accumulations of exposures over time. This is conceptually important as we know that children are subject to different social stratification processes as they age, and the neuroplasticity of their brains mean that different domains of child development have different sensitive periods during which they will be most at risk. Finally, our project stands out by utilizing a longitudinal, nationally-representative linked data; innovative methodologies; and a multidisciplinary approach. The project will contribute to the academic literature and will also have important policy implications.