Traffic-related air pollution, social factors and adverse birth outcomes

描述(由申请人提供) 这位候选人正在寻求独立之路奖，以提供密集的研究、培训和职业发展计划，成为斯坦福大学的流行病学家和发展调查员。长期目标是成为环境围产期流行病学领域的领先研究人员，目的是为改善儿科健康的临床决策和环境政策提供信息。为了继续朝着这一目标前进，这位候选人提出了一项研究，旨在解决社会因素在与交通相关的空气污染和不良生育结果之间的关系中所起作用的具体假设，即邻里剥夺和文化适应。感兴趣的暴露包括环境空气污染物和交通密度。不良出生结局包括结构性出生缺陷和与出生体重和胎龄有关的结局。她将使用半参数方法估计人口水平的影响，并使用更具因果关系的感兴趣的参数。她将开发和使用指数来表征邻里剥夺和文化适应，并调查这些因素作为潜在的影响修饰物。通过使用地理信息系统(GIS)工具和公开可用的数据，候选人将描述每个参与者所在社区的社会背景，以更深入地了解实际和社会环境在确定健康结果方面的相互作用。包含这些指数的数据将通过在线数据库共享，供研究人员在加利福尼亚州圣华金山谷未来的研究中使用。这项研究支持了美国国立卫生研究院预防 NIEHS的使命是建立综合环境健康研究计划，以解决人类生物学和人类疾病方面的交叉问题。有了候选人提出的强有力的研究计划，她计划未来的培训和强大的导师和顾问团队，她打算成为一名独立研究人员，并为竞争R01资金做好准备：1)扩大地理和时间范围；2)结合包括更多新生儿结局的数据库；3)通过收集更多关于其他污染物的数据，如杀虫剂和空气有毒物质，创建更丰富的暴露评估。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) The candidate is seeking a Pathway to Independence Award to provide an intensive research, training and career development program as an epidemiologist and developing investigator at the Stanford University. The long-term goal is to become a leading investigator in the field of environmental perinatal epidemiology with the intention of informing clinical decisions and environmental policy to improve pediatric health. To continue her progress towards this goal, the candidate is proposing a study addressing specific hypotheses of the role of social factors, namely neighborhood deprivation and acculturation, in the relationship between traffic-related air pollution and adverse birth outcomes. The exposures of interest include ambient air pollutants and traffic density. The adverse birth outcomes include structural birth defects and outcomes related to birth weight and gestational age. She will use semi-parametric methods estimate population- level effects with a more causal parameters of interest. She will develop and use indices to characterize neighborhood deprivation and acculturation and investigate these factors as potential effect modifiers. With the use of geographic information systems (GIS) tools and publicly available data, the candidate will characterize the social context of the neighborhood of each participant to gain more insight into the interaction of the physical and social environment in determining health outcomes. The data comprising these indices will be shared via an online database for researchers to use for future studies in the San Joaquin Valley of California. This research supports the National Institutes of Health's mission to prevent disease and improve the health and well-being of Americans and the NIEHS's mission to build integrated environmental health research programs to address the cross-cutting problems in human biology and human disease. With the robust research program that the candidate has proposed, she plan for future training and the strong team of mentors and advisors, and she intends to become an independent researcher and prepare herself to compete for R01 funding to: 1) expand the geographic and temporal range; 2) combine with databases that include additional neonatal outcomes; and 3) create a more rich exposure assessment by collecting more data on additional pollutants such as pesticides and air toxics.