Child linear growth impairment, particularly stunting, remains a global health challenge. Stunting is defined as a height-for-age Z-score more than two SDs below the WHO child growth standards reference median for age and sex. The number of children younger than 5 years who are stunted was 59 million (34%) in south Asia and 58 million (33%) in sub-Saharan Africa in 2018. Stunting is associated with poor child development, lower productivity and earnings in adulthood, and increased risk of chronic diseases later in life.^,  In this Comment, we argue that air pollution has been largely ignored as a potentially important cause of stunting, we outline a conceptual framework for how air pollution might lead to impaired linear growth in children, and we call for additional research into these mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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空气污染和发育迟缓：一个缺失的环节？

儿童线性成长障碍，尤其是发育迟缓，仍然是全球健康挑战。发育迟缓被定义为比世卫组织儿童生长标准参考的年龄和性别中位数低两个以上标准差的年龄高度Z分数。2018年，南亚5岁以下未成年儿童的数量为5900万（34％），撒哈拉以南非洲为5800万（33％）。发育迟缓与儿童发育不良，生产力下降和成年收入有关，并在以后的生活中增加患慢性病的风险。^， 在此评论，我们认为，空气污染在很大程度上被忽略的发育迟缓的一个潜在的重要原因，我们列出了空气污染如何可能导致受损的线性增长，儿童的概念框架，我们呼吁更多的研究这些机制。