TY - JOUR

T1 - Urban natural environments and motor development in early life

AU - Kabisch, Nadja

AU - Alonso, Lucia

AU - Dadvand, Payam

AU - van den Bosch, Matilda

N1 - Funding information: NK's work was supported by the research project Environmental-Health Interactions in Cities (Green-EquityHEALTH) - Challenges for Human Well-Being under Global Changes ( 2017–2022 ), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; no. 01LN1705A ). MvdB was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [Project Grant 156152 ]. PD is funded by a Ramón y Cajal fellowship ( RYC-2012-10995 ) awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness . The funding sources had no role in study design; collection, analysis and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or decision to submit the article for publication.

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - An emerging body of evidence has associated natural environments with improved brain development in children; however, these studies have mainly focused on cognition and available evidence for motor development is still scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the protective association of neighbourhood greenspace with motor development deficits in children. We obtained data on motor development deficits (separately for fine and gross motor developments) at sub-district level from routine medical check-up of children prior to enrolment into primary schools in the city of Berlin (2015–2016). Neighbourhood natural environments across the sub-districts were measured with three different metrics: the average of satellite-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the share of public green spaces, and the share of both public blue and green spaces (composite nature) across the sub-district. We applied negative binominal models to estimate the association between neighbourhood natural environments and fine and gross motor development deficits (one at a time), controlled for relevant sociodemographic indicators. Higher neighbourhood public green space and composite nature were significantly associated with lower risk of motor development deficits; however, the association were not statistically significant when using NDVI. Our findings, if confirmed by future studies, could provide evidence for implementing targeted interventions to enhance motor development in urban children.

AB - An emerging body of evidence has associated natural environments with improved brain development in children; however, these studies have mainly focused on cognition and available evidence for motor development is still scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the protective association of neighbourhood greenspace with motor development deficits in children. We obtained data on motor development deficits (separately for fine and gross motor developments) at sub-district level from routine medical check-up of children prior to enrolment into primary schools in the city of Berlin (2015–2016). Neighbourhood natural environments across the sub-districts were measured with three different metrics: the average of satellite-based normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the share of public green spaces, and the share of both public blue and green spaces (composite nature) across the sub-district. We applied negative binominal models to estimate the association between neighbourhood natural environments and fine and gross motor development deficits (one at a time), controlled for relevant sociodemographic indicators. Higher neighbourhood public green space and composite nature were significantly associated with lower risk of motor development deficits; however, the association were not statistically significant when using NDVI. Our findings, if confirmed by future studies, could provide evidence for implementing targeted interventions to enhance motor development in urban children.

KW - Brain development

KW - Motor development

KW - NDVI

KW - Pre-school children

KW - Urban green space

KW - Urban nature

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073031348&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108774

DO - 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108774

M3 - Article

C2 - 31606619

AN - SCOPUS:85073031348

VL - 179

JO - Environmental research

JF - Environmental research

SN - 0013-9351

M1 - 108774

ER -