Linking neuroimaging and mental health data from the ABCD Study to UrbanSat measurements of macro environmental factors

Although numerous studies over the past decade have highlighted the influence of environmental factors on mental health, globally applicable data on physical surroundings such as land cover and urbanicity are still limited. The urban environment is complex and composed of many interacting factors. To understand how urban living affects mental health, simultaneous measures of multiple environmental factors need to be related to symptoms of mental illness, while considering the underlying brain structure and function. So far, most studies have assessed individual urban environmental factors, such as greenness, in isolation and related them to individual symptoms of mental illness. We have refined the satellite-based ‘Urban Satellite’ (UrbanSat) measures, consisting of 11 satellite-data-derived environmental indicators, and linked them through residential addresses with participants of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The ABCD Study is the largest ongoing longitudinal and observational study exploring brain development and child health, involving 11,800 children, assessed at 9–16 years of age, from 21 sites across the USA. Here we describe linking of the ABCD Study data with UrbanSat variables, including each subject’s residential address at their baseline visit, including land cover and land use, nighttime lights and population characteristics. We also highlight and discuss important links of the satellite-data variables to the default mode network clustering coefficient and cognition. This comprehensive dataset provides an important tool for advancing neurobehavioral research on urbanicity during the critical developmental periods of childhood and adolescence. In this Perspective, the authors present a model of assessing urban environmental factors’ impact on mental health by using UrbanSat measures and data from adolescents in the ABCD Study.