Approved research

The UK Biobank Urban Morphometric Platform -Deciphering associations of built environment morphometrics with individual health and lifestyle

Lay summary

We propose to conduct a series of preliminary analyses into associations between various attributes of the built environment and lifestyle, after adjusting for a range of individual-level covariates including prevalent disease. At this stage, our spatial area of interest cover the eight UKB centres; for which all spatial modelling has been completed and submitted to UK Biobank. More specifically, we will assess the health-promoting/inhibiting effects of the built environment on diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, obesity and mental health through a series of statistical analyses. This proposal will not involve re-contact of participants or access to biological samples. Analyses will be conducted into health and the environment. These analyses will be some of the most detailed conducted in this area to-date. Furthermore, the project will also allow the development of statistical models that maybe applied to the full UKB dataset in due course. Development of a series of statistical models to find associations between attributes of built environment (objectively assessed through a series of morphological metrics - morphometrics) and individual level lifestyle including diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, obesity and mental health. Participants from the UKB centres of Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham, BARTS, Croydon, Hounslow, Leeds and Sheffield (N=164,234)

Background of the project: The project 11730 aims to employ the built environment exposure data developed by CS in collaboration with JG and CW to conduct a series of environment - health studies of significant detail and robustness than has been conducted before. The built environment data called UK Biobank Urban Morphometrics Platform was modelled and submitted to UKB in December 2016 and subsequently linked by UKB. Subsequently, new data got added to the UK Biobank resource and we hence request an extension of the scope of our project.

Extension of scope of the project: The PI and collaborators wish to conduct two sets of analyses and hence request for additional bulk data fields related to Brain MRI, hospital register and death register:

Current scope: We propose to conduct a series of preliminary analyses into associations between various attributes of the built environment and lifestyle, after adjusting for a range of individual-level covariates including prevalent disease. At this stage, our spatial area of interest cover the eight UKB centres; for which all spatial modeling has been completed and submitted to UK Biobank. More specifically, we will assess the health-promoting/inhibiting effects of the built environment on diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, obesity and mental health through a series of statistical analyses. This proposal will not involve re-contact of participants or access to biological samples.

1) Healthy brain - healthy environment studies: Recent studies have established direct evidence of links between brain function and environment exposures (a-d). We aim to examine if long term residential built environment exposure produces regional differences in brain which can be markers of cognitive function and mental health status. Built environment exposures will be derived from the UKBUMP and other datasets and include factors such as residential density, density of services, street network morphology, exposure to green space, deprivation, exposures to air and noise pollution. These exposure measures will be examined for potential link to MRI-derived brain markers T1 measures of brain volume, dMRI measures of tractography and connectivity, T2 flair for hyperintensities, functional-MRI and SWI. At this point we want to examine associations between MRI-derived brain markers and exposure and will not create any new derived variables from the MRI metrics. Analyses will also be stratified by degree of vulnerabilities in term of cardiovascular health status and cognitive function.

2) Built environment exposure - health and mortality studies: We wish to explore links between various morbidities (such as cardiovascular disease and cancer derived from hospital records), mortality (derived from death register) and exposures to built environment.

References:

1. Bratman, GN, Hamilton, JP, Hahn, KS, Daily, GC, and Gross, JJ. Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015; 112: 8567-8572
2. McNaughton, BL, Battaglia, FP, Jensen, O, Moser, EI, and Moser, M-B. Path integration and the neural basis of the 'cognitive map'. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2006; 7: 663-678
3. Dadvand et al. (2018) The association between lifelong greenspace exposure and 3-dimensional brain magnetic resonance imaging in Barcelona school children. Environmental Health Perspective, 126(2).
4. Power et al. (2018) The association of long-term exposure to particulate matter air pollution with brain MRI findings: The ARIC study. Environmental Health Perspective, 126(2).

The proposed scope extension will additionally aim to examine the potential associations of telomere length (as biomarkers of biological ageing and chronic stress) with differential exposures to built environments, including levels of greenness, deprivation, urban density etc as measured by the UKBUMP dataset (developed by the PI and collaborators) and health outcomes. We also aim to employ chronic stress (as measured by telomere length) as a mediator in the associations between built environment exposures and health outcomes.

The proposed scope extension will additionally aim to develop: 1) satellite-derived urban exposure metrics of exposure to light pollution at night (LAN), 2) satellite-derived metrics of greenspace and 3) Urban climate exposure (temperature, humidity rainfall). The new green metrics will be developed to supplement what was already developed (within UKBUMP covering 77% of cohort) modelling on different satellite datasets and covering the whole ~500k at multiple time points. We plan to conduct a series of detailed analyses using hospital records, death register and cancer registry, UKB data linking light at night, exposure to greenness, urban climate and temperature and multiple health outcomes (including cause-specific mortality, CVD, CVD risk factors, cancer, sleep, related physiological biomarkers and mental health) and adjusting for built environment, lifestyle and related confounders. We request access to unrounded (exact) X, Y address coordinates for this sub-project for the purposes of exposure linkage. Related PMID references: 32497902, 33131852, 31999997, 31777339, 29615217.

As scope extension, we aim to develop causal models from environment (built and social) to chronic diseases via the genetic pathways. We shall leverage on UK Biobank genotype data and data from previously conducted genome-wide association studies to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) being significantly associated with multiple chronic diseases by conducting clumping in PLINK. Selected SNPs will be employed to create polygenic risk scores (genetic risk) for multiple chronic diseases. Specifically, A) Genetic risk score will be used conduct Mendelian Randomization (MR) with an objective of examining causal associations of built and social environments on chronic diseases. B) We shall examine additive and multiplicative interactions between genetic risk and environmental (built and social) determinants on incident chronic diseases. C) We shall adjust for genetic risks in our models examining independent associations of social and built environmental factors with health outcomes as sensitivity tests.