Examine the link between urbanicity, air pollution and psychiatric disorders
Project coordinator :
Franck Schurhoff
Coordinating institution :
Université Paris-Est Créteil
Urbanicity, air pollution, mental health, exposure modeling, sensors, fine particles, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, oxidizing potential, cohort, French Minds
- Budget : 1,2 M€
- Duration : 60 months
- Number : ANR-22-EXPR-0003
Urbanicity, i.e. being born and/or raised in the city, is a known and consensual risk factor for several psychiatric disorders (psychotic disorders, mood disorders, autism spectrum disorders). However, the factors explaining this association are poorly understood.
Air pollution, known to be implicated in various chronic diseases, is a strong candidate to explain this association.
This project will compare exposure to different pollutants in control subjects and in subjects suffering from psychiatric disorders, assuming greater exposure in the latter.
Estimating the exposure of individuals to air pollution is a challenge, and the method used can partly condition the results obtained. It is essential to be able to include different methods of estimating exposure to air pollution (public databases, models, indoor and outdoor sensors).
Two types of exposure will be studied. Firstly, retrospective exposure will be modelled throughout the subjects’ lives, using synergistic numerical modelling and observations of pollutant concentrations for the period 1990-2022, the longest ever studied with such tools in France. On the other hand, exposure will be measured prospectively using pollution sensors, in order to study short-term effects on the 4 psychiatric disorders, as well as on attenuated psychiatric manifestations in control subjects.
The aims of this project are to measure the influence of air pollution on the risk of developing severe psychiatric disorders, identify windows of vulnerability and study the impact on the clinical presentation, course and short-term evolution of the four psychiatric pathologies studied in PEPR.
The 2500 subjects suffering from one of the 4 psychiatric disorders and 500 witnesses evaluated in the French Minds cohort will be included.
Two types of study, depending on whether the data are retrospective or prospective, will be carried out on patients and witnesses from the French Minds cohort. A case-control study for all and each of the 4 psychiatric disorders : comparison of long-term exposure to air pollution. And a prospective ancillary study of the influence of air pollution on variations in clinical (and sub-clinical) manifestations of the disease and associated comorbidities.
Fondation FondaMental, Ineris, Inserm, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Sorbonne University