Novel Approaches for Linking Air Quality Mixtures, Climate, and Human Health

描述(由申请人提供)： 城市空气污染是一个重大的公共卫生问题，估计死亡影响主要发生在患有心血管和呼吸系统疾病的婴儿和老年人中。关于环境空气污染对健康影响的研究已经开始将研究目标从单一污染物范式转向更多污染物或混合污染物的视角，以便更好地了解暴露在“现实世界”空气污染对人类健康的影响。另一个从根本上与空气质量有关并日益受到公众健康关注的领域是气候变化。在K99的初始阶段，候选人将与导师密切合作，开发改进的统计方法，以评估流行病学研究中多种污染物暴露的影响，这是当前博士后研究的自然延伸。这里的目的是将重点从识别环境中发生的空气污染物混合物的类型转移到为流行病学研究确定多污染物暴露的特征。这些研究将应用于东南部空气污染流行病学中心(SCAPE)内正在进行的两项流行病学调查；一个由美国环保署资助的清洁空气研究中心(CLARC，R834799)，由埃默里大学和佐治亚理工学院共享：一项短期生态研究和一项长期队列研究。在指导阶段，将开发多种污染物的时间分布，以调查暴露和心肺健康结果的短期关联。下一步，将开发多污染物空间概况，以检查多污染物暴露与呼吸道疾病发病率之间的长期关联。在这一阶段，候选人将在埃默里大学接受生物统计学和流行病学方法方面的新培训，重点是环境流行病学。在该奖项的R00阶段过渡到独立，这些新技能将与博士培训相结合，以开展侧重于了解气候对空气质量混合物的影响的研究。第一个具体目标是检查特定多种污染物组合的气象敏感性，以便更好地了解潜在的变化。 在各种气候情景下的空气污染物混合物中。最终的具体目标是制定环境概况，以检查人类健康对高温和多种污染物混合物的脆弱性。在这个奖项结束时，候选人打算在分析多污染物混合物和气候变异性的新兴研究领域的影响方面表现出专业知识，为我作为一名环境健康科学家的职业生涯奠定坚实的基础，专注于流行病学研究的暴露特征。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Urban air pollution is a significant public health problem with estimated mortality impacts predominantly among infants and elderly people with pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Research on ambient air pollution health effects has begun shifting research objectives away from the single-pollutant paradigm to a more multipollutant or mixtures perspective in order to better understand the impacts of "real world" air pollution exposures on human health. Another area that is fundamentally linked to air quality and of increasing concern for public health is climate change. During the initial K99 phase, the candidate will work closely with mentors to develop improved statistical methodologies for assessing the effects of multipollutant exposures in epidemiological studies, a natural extension of current postdoctoral research. The intent here is to shift focus from identifying the types of air pollutant mixtures that occur in th environment to characterizing multipollutant exposures for epidemiological research. These will be applied to two ongoing epidemiological investigations that are being conducted within the Southeastern Center for Air Pollution Epidemiology (SCAPE); a US EPA funded Clean Air Research Center (CLARC, R834799) shared between Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology: a short-term ecological study and a long-term cohort study. During the mentored phase, multipollutant temporal profiles will be developed for an investigation of short-term associations with exposure and cardiorespiratory health outcomes. Next, multipollutant spatial profiles will be developed to examine long-term associations between multipollutant exposure and respiratory disease incidence. During this phase, the candidate will receive new training in biostatistical and epidemiologic methods focused on environmental epidemiology at Emory University. Transitioning to independence in the R00 phase of the award, these new skills will be merged with the PhD training to pursue research focused on understanding the implications of climate on air quality mixtures. The first specific aim will examine the meteorological sensitivity of specific multipollutant combinations in order to better understand potential changes in air pollutant mixtures under various climate scenarios. The final specific aim is to develop environmental profiles for the examination of human health vulnerability to heat and multipollutant mixtures. At the conclusion of this award, the candidate intends to have demonstrated expertise in analyzing effects for the emerging research areas of multipollutant mixtures and climate variability, providing a firm basis for my career as an environmental health scientist focusing on exposure characterizations for epidemiological research.