Are there critical periods for stress and pollution exposures across the life course?
Different diseases are relevant at different life stages. Asthma is among the most prevalent chronic illnesses of childhood, whereas cardiovascular illness generally afflicts older persons. Because the life-course distribution of illness varies considerably, relationships among stress, susceptibility, and illness likely also vary with age. Although stress can be toxic at any age, there may be critical periods, such as during early immune development, when it is particularly influential in shaping future susceptibility and disease risk (Evans and English 2002). Parental stress has been used to examine stress exposures in young children, and research supports inverse associations for both mother’s SES and depressive states on children’s stress hormone levels (Lupien et al. 2000). Prospective studies have linked care-giver stress to infant wheeze (Wright et al. 2002), and maternal stress during pregnancy may influence immune function and health in neonates (Weiss and Bellinger 2006). Mate
