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. 2025 May:199:109493.
doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2025.109493. Epub 2025 Apr 25.

Residential greenspace and lung function throughout childhood and adolescence in five European birth cohorts. A CADSET initiative

Carlos A Valencia-Hernández  1 , Zhebin Yu  2 , Ulrike Gehring  3 , Gerard H Koppelman  4 , Marie Standl  5 , Claudia Flexeder  6 , Tamara Schikowski  7 , Sara Kress  8 , Erik Melén  9 , Olena Gruzieva  2 , Mare Lõhmus  2 , Rosa Faner  10 , Alvar Agusti  11 , Jadwiga A Wedzicha  12 , Judith Garcia-Aymerich  13 , Sarah Koch  14 , Mark Nieuwenhuijsen  13 , Aitana Lertxundi  15 , Ana Esplugues  16 , Ferran Ballester  16 , Ane Arregi  17 , Iana Markevych  18 , Chloe I Bloom  19 , Elaine Fuertes  20 ; CADSET Clinical Research Collaboration
Affiliations
Free article

Residential greenspace and lung function throughout childhood and adolescence in five European birth cohorts. A CADSET initiative

Carlos A Valencia-Hernández et al. Environ Int. 2025 May.
Free article

Abstract

Whether greenspace affects lung function is unclear. We explored associations between the level of greenness or presence of urban green space near the home with lung function measures taken repeatedly during childhood and adolescence in five European birth cohorts. Lung function was measured by spirometry between six and 22 years (2-3 times), and 9,206 participants from BAMSE (Sweden), GINI/LISA South and GINI/LISA North (Germany), PIAMA (The Netherlands) and INMA (Spain) contributed at least one lung function measurement. The mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in a 300 m buffer and presence of urban green space within a 300 m buffer (yes/no) were estimated at the home address at the time of each spirometry measurement. Cohort-specific associations were assessed using adjusted linear mixed models and combined in a random-effects meta-analysis. Residential greenness was not associated with forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC) or FEV1/FVC in the meta-analysis (2.3 ml [-3.2, 7.9], 6.2 ml [-3.4, 15.7] and -0.1 [-0.3, 0.1] per 0.1 increase in NDVI, respectively), nor was having a nearby urban green space (-8.6 ml [-22.3, 5.0], -7.6 ml [-24.7, 9.4] and 0.0 [-0.4, 0.3], respectively). Heterogeneity was low to moderate (I2 = 0 -39 %). Asthma, atopy, air pollution, sex, socioeconomic status and urbanization did not modify the null associations. Using repeated data from five large independent European birth cohorts, we did not find associations between vegetation levels around the home or the presence of an urban green space and lung function levels during childhood and adolescence.

Keywords: Adolescence; Children; Cohort; Greenness; Greenspace; Lung function.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Gerard H. Koppelman reports relationships that include: board membership, funding grants, and speaking and lecture fees. Gerard H. Koppelman reports grant support from the Netherlands Lung Foundation, ZON-MW (VICI grant), European Union, TEVA the Netherlands, GSK and Vertex outside the submitted work (Money to Institution). GHK participated in advisory boards or gave lectures supported by AZ, PURE- IMS, Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi (money to Institution). Jadwiga A. Wedzicha reports relationships that include: board membership, consulting or advisory, funding grants, and speaking and lecture fees. Jadwiga A. Wedzicha reports outside submitted work research grants from Astra Zeneca, Boehringer, Chiesi, GSK, Novartis, fees for lectures and/or advisory boards from AZ, GSK, Sanofi, Gilead, Empirico, Epiendo, Boehringer, Chiesi, Pieris, Pulmatrix. The other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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