ArticleEnvironment international2020
Early life exposure to green space and insulin resistance: An assessment from infancy to early adolescence.
Article in Environment international, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Socioeconomic inequalities in exposure to neighbourhood environments for physical activity: a systematic review.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026Pooled it
- Examining noncommunicable diseases using satellite imagery: a systematic literature review.BMC public health · 2024Pooled it
- The Differences by Sex and Gender in the Relationship Between Urban Greenness and Cardiometabolic Health: A Systematic Review.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Growing up green: a systematic review of the influence of greenspace on youth development and health outcomes.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- The Green Heart Project: objectives, design, and methods.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Evaluating Microclimate Modification and Acute Cardiovascular Stress Responses to a Dense Urban Microforest: The Green Oasis (GRO) Protocol.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Gestational and Early Childhood Exposure to Barium and Cardiometabolic Risk in Preschoolers: Findings From the Ma'anshan Birth Cohort Study in China.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2025Article
- Cohort Profile Update: Project Viva Offspring.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Cohort Profile Update: Project Viva mothers.International journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- The Green Heart Project: Objectives, Design, and Methods.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Street-view greenspace exposure and objective sleep characteristics among children.Environmental research · 2022Article
- Early life exposure to greenness and executive function and behavior: An application of inverse probability weighting of marginal structural models.Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) · 2021Article
- Associations between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- Associations of Residential Brownness and Greenness with Fasting Glucose in Young Healthy Adults Living in the Desert.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecent studies suggest that greater exposure to natural vegetation, or "green space" is associated with lower diabetes risk, possibly through increasing physical activity. However, there is limited research on green space and insulin resistance in youth. We hypothesized greater green space at early-life sensitive time periods would be associated with lower insulin resistance in youth.
methodsWe used data from Project Viva (N = 460), a pre-birth cohort study that recruited pregnant women in eastern Massachusetts, 1999-2002, and followed offspring into adolescence. We defined residential green space exposure at infancy (median age - 1.1 years), early childhood (3.2 years), mid-childhood (7.7 years), and early adolescence (12.8 years), using 30 m resolution Landsat satellite imagery to estimate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]. Our main outcome was early adolescence estimated insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). We used multiple imputation to account for missing data and multiple linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, parental education, household income, and neighborhood median household income.
resultsThe highest green space tertile had the highest percentage of white participants (85%), college-educated mothers (87%) and fathers (85%), and households with income higher than US$70,000 (86%). Unadjusted models showed that participants living in the highest green space tertile at infancy had a 0.15 unit lower HOMA-IR (95% CI: -0.23, -0.06) in early adolescence, than those living in the lowest tertile. However, in adjusted models, we did not observe evidence of associations between green space from infancy to early adolescence and HOMA-IR in early adolescence, although some point estimates were in the hypothesized direction. For example, participants in the highest green space tertile in infancy had 0.03 units lower HOMA-IR (95%CI: -0.14, 0.08) than those living in the lowest tertile.
conclusionsExposure to green space at early life sensitive time periods was not associated with HOMA-IR in youth. Early-life longitudinal studies across diverse populations are needed to confirm or refute our results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.