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Wooden Alphabet Letters

The Glossary

Here's a glossary to help you understand the terms we use to define objects in Equal Life project.

 

It's a simple guide to the words and and ideas.

A

The persons that the child interacts with such as family, peers, companions, official figures, other adult figures, acquaintances and digital contacts.

Actors

B

 In general, a biomarker is a versatile tool that can for example refer to inflammatory proteins, methylated DNA, and metabolites (Vineis et al., 2020). Biomarkers are widely defined as any substance, structure, or process that can be measured in the body or its products and influence or predict the incidence of outcome or disease (World Health Organization, 2001). The difference between biomarkers and clinical outcome assessments (COAs) is important. COAs measure outcomes that are directly important to the patients and can be used to meet standards for regulatory approval of therapeutics, whereas biomarkers serve a variety of purposes, one of which is to link measurement to a prediction of COAs (Califf, 2018). Biomarkers and omics technologies may allow better causal attribution between the health effect and environmental exposures, for example using instrumental variables in triangulation.

Biomarkers

 e.g. level of urbanization, type of neighbourhood, street connectivity, junctions’ density, road types, land‐use, building quality (housing quality, age of building), crowding, physical safety, walkability, access to facilities such as playground, sportsground, parks, culture and relevant moderators such as length of residency.

Built environment

C

Cognition is defined as “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses” (Dhakal & Bobrin, 2022). From an information processing point of view (Neisser, 1967), cognition refers to perception and appropriate (re‐)action, to encoding, storage, transformation, elaboration, and retrieval of information, to reasoning, problem‐solving, and decision making

Cognition

An idea or an imaginary situation (e.g. green space) 

Construct or concept

Coping has been defined as “Conscious and volitional efforts to regulate emotion, cognition, behaviour, physiology, and the environment in response to stressful events or circumstances“, or – from a child development perspective – as “regulation under stress” (Compas et al., 2001). Coping thus refers to self‐regulation processes that are generated specifically in response to stressful events or circumstances, including regulation of physiology, emotion, motivation, cognition, and action

Coping

D

Protocols for collecting details regarding exposure data available in the cohorts and school studies, and for collecting sources potentially relevant for data enrichment, were developed. 

Data mapping
collection

A sphere of knowledge, influence, or activity (e.g. urban planning)

Domain

E

Emotion‐related self‐regulation (in the following: emotion regulation) has been defined as “a process of initiating, avoiding, inhibiting, maintaining, or modulating the occurrence, form, intensity, or duration of internal feeling states, emotion‐related physiological responses, attentional processes, motivational states, and/or the behavioural concomitants of emotion in the service of accomplishing affect‐related biological or social adaptation or achieving individual goals” (Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004, p. 338).

Emotion‐related
self‐regulation

Executive Function (EF) is an umbrella term referring to cognitive processes that enable volitional control of goal‐directed behaviour. EFs allow us to inhibit impulsive but insufficient responses, stay focused on a task in the presence of distracting stimuli, avoid actions that bring immediate rewards but hinder the achievement of long‐term goals, and adapt quickly and efficiently to changing requirements. Self‐regulation processes involved in cognitive performance in relatively neutral situations, i.e., in laboratory‐based, decontextualized tests with little emotional and motivational valence (for reviews, see Nigg, 2017; Zelazo, 2015). The latter are usually referred to as “executive functions” (EFs). EFs play a dominant role in children ́s cognitive development and academic achievement. In Equal‐Life EFs are considered as cognitive outcomes.

Executive Function 

The external exposome is the umbrella term for all environmental exposures of an individual caused by the collective action of other persons and/or natural phenomena. The physical exposome is a part of the external exposome.

External exposome

I

A group of statistical values that, taken together indicate a particular variable (e.g. time spent in green space)

Indicator

E.g. mother smoking during pregnancy, child passive smoking, crowding, indoor air quality, indoor sound quality, household chemicals, prenatal chemicals.

Indoor environmental quality

L

e.g. sleep (duration/quality/rhythm), substance use, healthy food intake, activity patterns, mobility/mode of commuting, leisure time, sports, sunlight exposure, playtime online.

Lifestyle factors

M

Mediator

A mediator is a factor that comes between the cause and effect. It is affected by the cause and then affects the outcome.

It is an intervening factor, which stands on the causal path between the exposure and the outcome in such a way that it “is caused by” the exposure and in turn “causes” the outcome (VanderWeele 2016). This means that the exposure, mediator, and outcome must happen in order over time. The mediator should appear after the exposure but before the outcome, even when using data that is collected at one point in time (Tate 2015).

Mediation

The process of mediation then refers to a relationship between exposure, mediator, and outcome, where the mediator accounts for the effect of the exposure on the outcome either in part (partial mediation) or completely (full mediation).

Metric

Specific instrument/standard of measurement (e.g. number of  hours spent in green space within 60 meters from home)

Micro-environment

Micro‐environment is an experience of a given setting with specific physical and material characteristics. Different settings (a place where people can interact) may give rise to different patterns of roles, activities, and social relations, which are also affected by “higher level” factors such as cultural background.

N

 e.g. green space, blue space, access to green and blue space (residential/school/on the move), playability, biodiversity, safety, activities in green and blue spaces.

Natural environment

O

Exposomes have been studied earlier in the EXPOsOMICS consortium, which was a project funded by the EU that aims to develop a novel approach for the assessment of exposures to high priority environmental pollutants. Furthermore, the EXPOsOMICS project advanced omics technologies (metabolomics, adductomics) to identify and quantify environmental exposure and applied technologies to measure the downstream effects of environmental exposures

Omics technologies

e.g. noise and sound quality, air quality, housing practices.

Outdoor environmental quality

P

The location the social interactions occur such as home, places for leisure time,

Places

Stepwise selection of variables from the different constructs of the external exposome and the subconstructs physical and social exposome and the cross‐cutting fields such as lifestyle, while taking the child, the child’s location and the proximity as a point of departure; and reasoning from mental health/cognitive development towards exposures.

Process

 i.e. the ability to provide speeded responses to simple, unambiguous stimuli. Processing speed increases with age until adolescence and is regarded as an indicator of the efficiency of information processing (Kail, 1991)

Processing speed

Q

Quality of life refers to “an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad ranging concept affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships and their relationship to salient features of their environment.” (WHO, 1995). Quality of life is therefore associated with both well‐being and potentially also mental health (Ravens‐Sieberer, Karow, Barthel, & Klasen, 2014). The measurement of quality of life can cover diverse aspects including life satisfaction, functioning and health‐related quality of life

Quality of life

R

 The nature of interactions between the individual and their interaction partners, e.g. the level of social support the child receives from their parents.

Relational dynamics

Restoration can be defined as a process through which adaptive capacities diminished in ongoing efforts to meet adaptive demands are renewed, recovered, or re‐established (Hartig, 2004). We can distinguish actual restoration and subjective restoration experience (Hartig, 2007). Actual restoration refers to the recovery of cognitive or other resources following exposure to a taxing environmental stimulus, while perceived restoration refers to the perceptions of the effect of restorative experience or how one restored one feels in some spatial or activity context (Hartig, 2016; Malekinezhad and Bin Lamit 2018).

Restoration

Restorativeness/restorative quality can be defined as the potential restorative capacity of environment, surroundings, setting or activity. This can be divided into perceived restorative quality, objective restorative quality, i.e. the availability or accessibility to environments where “stressors” are absent or environmental attributes elicit fascination or promote acquisition of new adaptive resources, and instoration ‐– a construct closely related to restoration; that is, an environment of high restorative quality can afford opportunities to acquire new adaptive resources, and in turn both can work together to support mental health/ cognition and foster health in general.

Restorativeness/restorative quality

S

Self‐regulation refers to a set of skills involved in the conscious, top‐down, goal‐directed modulation of thought, emotion, and action (Zelazo, 2015). According to a broad definition proposed by Blair and Diamond (2008), self‐regulation “...refers to the primarily volitional cognitive and behavioural processes through which an individual maintains levels of emotional, motivational, and cognitive arousal that are conducive to positive adjustment and adaptation, as reflected in positive social relationships, productivity, achievement, and a positive sense of self“. Children’s self‐regulation skills thus determine the way they react to and manage both daily life challenges, and stressful events.In Equal-life the term self‐regulation is used for control and regulation of one ́s emotional states.

Self-
regulation

Sleep is crucial for our bodies and minds. While we don't fully understand all the details, we know it helps us recover and be alert during the day. Sleep changes as we grow older, with young children needing more sleep. Teenagers need enough sleep for their brains and bodies to develop properly. Factors like school start times and phone use can lead to not getting enough sleep.

Sleep

Measures of sleep quantity and sleep pattern; measures of sleep quality; sleep related outcomes (short term); sleep related behaviour and time of sleeping during day.

Sleep disturbance

Social inequalities and structural injustices: representing the laws, rules and regulations that are social determinants of living and working conditions

Social inequalities and structural injustices

Legal and non‐legal social norms operate to guide standards or expectations of behaviour, especially in social settings. Cultural values, in a similar way to social norms, represent the underlying assumptions and beliefs. Different cultural values and different prioritisation of these cultural values – as well as opportunities to realise them – can be the basis for potential discrimination alongside also norms that can act to privilege or disadvantage particular groups

Social inequalities and structural injustices

Socioeconomic circumstances and sociodemographic characteristics: describe living conditions and attributes of a person at a certain point in time.

Socioeconomic circumstances

Stress is a response to perceived internal and external demands that challenge an organism's balance/homeostasis, often exceeding adaptive capacities especially in unpredictable and uncontrollable situations. Responses to stressors can be physiological e.g. releasing stress-related hormones such as cortisol as a reaction to a stressful situation. Chronic stress, resulting from prolonged exposure to demanding situations perceived as harmful, is closely tied to mental well-being and mental illnesses like depression.

Stress

Stressors are all demanding external and internal challenges, e.g., pollutants, social relations, economic and ecological stressors, critical life events, worries, and occupational stressors.

Stressor

V

Any factor that can be controlled, changed, or measured (e.g.  exposure to green space)

Variable

W

Well‐being, or positive mental health, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “a state of well‐being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community”. According to this definition, a healthy state is not merely the absence of diseases but also a sense of fulfilment, life satisfaction and motivation. Well‐being is typically defined by two components: hedonic well‐being, covering happiness, life satisfaction, and overall interest in life; and eudaemonic well‐being, covering personal growth, relationships, and optimal functioning (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Stewart‐Brown et al., 2009; Weich et al., 2011). Other definitions of well‐being/positive mental health distinguish between “feeling well” (pleasure, happiness, emotional satisfaction) and “doing well” (adaptational success, i.e. mastering of developmental tasks faced by children of a given age in a specific socio‐cultural context) (Masten & Curtis, 2000; Miles, Espiritu, Horen, Sebian, & Waetzig, 2010). The latter dimension has been shown to be associated with communication skills and educational achievement in children (O'Connor, O'Connor, Gray, & Goldfeld, 2018). Other terminology used in relation to well‐being includes psychological well‐being, social well‐being and emotional‐well‐being.

Well‐being

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