City babies more stressed, new UEL research shows

We know that adults who live in cities tend to report higher stress and anxiety than non-city dwellers - but we don’t know why this is, and we don’t how early these effects emerge. Our study suggests that city life may be affecting children much more than we've realised - which is crucial because it’s during early life that we are at our most vulnerable.

"Importantly, though, the study also showed that the effects of city life on early development aren't all bad. 'City babies' showed worse sustained attention and worse emotion regulation - but they also showed better engagement and learnt new faces more quickly. This is important because it helps us think about how we should be tailoring education and learning to get the best out of high-stress city kids,"

Professor Sam Wass, director of BabyDevLab at UEL and lead author of study, said.

The UEL BabyDevLab hosts a range of projects that use new techniques, including dual parent-child EEG, miniaturised microphones, cameras and stress monitors that can be worn by babies and parents in the home, and computerised concentration training exercises for infants.

The children in its catchment area come from some of the most socioeconomically and demographically diverse areas in the UK, and a major focus of their research is looking at how children's different early life experiences affect their concentration, learning, and emotion regulation.