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Chronic effects of air pollution on respiratory health in Southern California children: findings from the Southern California Children's Health Study.

ABSTRACT: Outdoor air pollution is one of the leading contributors to adverse respiratory health outcomes in urban areas around the world. Children are highly sensitive to the adverse effects of air pollution due to their rapidly growing lungs, incomplete immune and metabolic functions, patterns of ventilation and high levels of outdoor activity. The Children's Health Study (CHS) is a continuing series of longitudinal studies that first began in 1993 and has focused on demonstrating the chronic impacts of air pollution on respiratory illnesses from early childhood through adolescence. A large body of evidence from the CHS has documented that exposures to both regional ambient air and traffic-related pollutants are associated with increased asthma prevalence, new-onset asthma, risk of bronchitis and wheezing, deficits of lung function growth, and airway inflammation. These associations may be modulated by key genes involved in oxidative-nitrosative stress pathways via gene-environment interactions. Despite successful efforts to reduce pollution over the past 40 years, air pollution at the current levels still brings many challenges to public health. To further ameliorate adverse health effects attributable to air pollution, many more toxic pollutants may require regulation and control of motor vehicle emissions and other combustion sources may need to be strengthened. Individual interventions based on personal susceptibility may be needed to protect children's health while control measures are being implemented.

SUBMITTER: Chen Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4311073 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Chronic effects of air pollution on respiratory health in Southern California children: findings from the Southern California Children's Health Study.

Chen Zhanghua Z Salam Muhammad T MT Eckel Sandrah P SP Breton Carrie V CV Gilliland Frank D FD

Journal of thoracic disease 20150101 1

Outdoor air pollution is one of the leading contributors to adverse respiratory health outcomes in urban areas around the world. Children are highly sensitive to the adverse effects of air pollution due to their rapidly growing lungs, incomplete immune and metabolic functions, patterns of ventilation and high levels of outdoor activity. The Children's Health Study (CHS) is a continuing series of longitudinal studies that first began in 1993 and has focused on demonstrating the chronic impacts of ...[more]

PMID: 25694817

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Project description:An Environmental Justice (EJ) analysis was carried out using full Chemical Transport Models (CTMs) over Los Angeles, California, to determine how the combination of domain size and spatial resolution affects predicted air pollution disparities in present day and future simulations when data support from measurements is not available. One set of simulations used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with Chemistry (WRF/Chem) with spatial resolution ranging from 250 m to 36 km, comparable to census tract sizes, over domains ranging in size from 320 km2 to 10,000 km2. A second set of simulations used the UCD/CIT CTM with spatial resolution ranging from 4 km to 24 km over domains ranging in size from 98,000 km2 to 1,000,000 km2. Overall WRF/Chem model accuracy improved approximately 9% as spatial resolution increased from 4 km to 250 m in present-day simulations, with similar results expected for future simulations. Exposure disparity results are consistent with previous findings: the average Non-Hispanic White person in the study domain experiences PM2.5 mass concentrations 6–14% lower than the average resident, while the average Black and African American person experiences PM2.5 mass concentrations that are 3–22% higher than the average resident. Predicted exposure disparities were a function of the model configuration. Increasing the spatial resolution finer than approximately 1 km produced diminishing returns because the increased spatial resolution came at the expense of reduced domain size in order to maintain reasonable computational burden. Increasing domain size to capture regional trends, such as wealthier populations living in coastal areas, identified larger exposure disparities but the benefits were limited. CTM configurations that use spatial resolution/domain size of 1 km/103 km2 and 4 km/104 km2 over Los Angeles can detect a 0.5 μg m−3 exposure difference with statistical power greater than 90%. These configurations represent a balanced approach between statistical power, sensitivity across socio-economic groups, and computational burden when predicting current and future air pollution exposure disparities in Los Angeles. Air quality; Environmental disparity; PM2.5; Chemical transport model.

Project description:BackgroundDue to the complex interplay among different urban-related exposures, a comprehensive approach is advisable to estimate the health effects. We simultaneously assessed the effect of "green", "grey" and air pollution exposure on respiratory/allergic conditions and general symptoms in schoolchildren.MethodsThis study involved 219 schoolchildren (8-10?years) of the Municipality of Palermo, Italy. Data were collected through questionnaires self-administered by parents and children. Exposures to greenness and greyness at the home addresses were measured using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), residential surrounding greyness (RSG) and the CORINE land-cover classes (CLC). RSG was defined as the percentage of buffer covered by either industrial, commercial and transport units, or dump and construction sites, or urban fabric related features. Two specific categories of CLC, namely "discontinuous urban fabric - DUF" - and "continuous urban fabric - CUF" - areas were found. Exposure to traffic-related nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was assessed using a Land-Use Regression model. A symptom score ranging from 0 to 22 was built by summing affirmative answers to twenty-two questions on symptoms. To avoid multicollinearity, multiple Logistic and Poisson ridge regression models were applied to assess the relationships between environmental factors and self-reported symptoms.ResultsA very low exposure to NDVI ?0.15 (1st quartile) had a higher odds of nasal symptoms (OR?=?1.47, 95% CI [1.07-2.03]). Children living in CUF areas had higher odds of ocular symptoms (OR?=?1.49, 95% CI [1.10-2.03]) and general symptoms (OR?=?1.18, 95% CI [1.00-1.48]) than children living in DUF areas. Children living in proximity (?200?m) to High Traffic Roads (HTRs) had increased odds of ocular (OR?=?1.68, 95% CI [1.31-2.17]) and nasal symptoms (OR?=?1.49, 95% CI [1.12-1.98]). A very high exposure to NO2 ??60??g/m3 (4th quartile) was associated with a higher odds of general symptoms (OR?=?1.28, 95% CI [1.10-1.48]). No associations were found with RGS. A Poisson ridge regression model on the symptom score showed that children living in proximity to HTRs (?200?m) had a higher symptoms score (RR?=?1.09, 95% CI [1.02-1.17]) than children living >?200?m from HTRs. Children living in CUF areas had a higher symptoms score (RR?=?1.11, 95% CI [1.03-1.19]) than children living in DUF areas.ConclusionsMultiple exposures related to greenness, greyness (measured by CORINE) and air pollution within the urban environment are associated with respiratory/allergic and general symptoms in schoolchildren. No associations were found when considering the individual exposure to greyness measured using the RSG indicator.

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Dataset Information

Chronic effects of air pollution on respiratory health in Southern California children: findings from the Southern California Children's Health Study.

Publications

Chronic effects of air pollution on respiratory health in Southern California children: findings from the Southern California Children's Health Study.

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