School-based air pollution and asthma morbidity in Inner City School Children

描述（由申请人提供）：学校暴露于空气污染对儿童的呼吸系统健康构成特定威胁，特别是哮喘儿童。家庭室内空气污染和环境污染已被确定为儿童哮喘发病的危险因素，然而，很少有人注意到在教室里遇到的暴露。学校是一个独特的环境，因为它位于市中心，有自己的交通模式，以及大量的室内活动，导致污染物的再悬浮。此外，大多数儿童需要在这种环境中度过很大一部分时间。该提案详细介绍了一个为期五年的项目，为Jonathan Gaffin博士提供物理环境评估方面的培训和专业知识，特别关注学校环境中的空气污染。Gaffin博士将研究特定于教室环境的气体和颗粒空气污染暴露的作用，并在参加内城学校过敏原和儿童哮喘研究的内城哮喘儿童的既定队列中测量其健康影响（PI：Phipatanakul）。另外，利用地理信息系统（GIS），Gaffin博士将把家庭和学校的暴露整合到一个模型中，该模型将区分每个地点在市中心儿童哮喘发病率中的独立作用。这种新的方法来整合从几个微环境中的暴露与哮喘发病率将提供一个更完整的评估个人暴露风险，并可能导致更集中和有效的干预措施。它还为进一步评价与物理环境有关的若干并发因素提供了基础， 健康和疾病。Gaffin博士将在Phipatanakul博士的指导下工作，Phipatanakul博士是环境流行病学和哮喘方面的专家，此外还有一个非凡的研究团队，包括Diane Gold博士，彼得罗斯Koutrakis博士和布伦特Coull博士，他们投入了时间，资源和专业知识来促进Gaffin博士的职业发展和成功完成拟议的项目。Gaffin博士拥有哈佛医学院临床研究医学硕士学位，在流行病学、统计学和研究方法学方面有着坚实的基础。在此期间，Gaffin博士将磨练他在环境流行病学方面的技能，并学习环境评估和物理环境元素行为的时空技术，重点是空气污染和儿童哮喘。由导师，机构，哈佛大学及其附属机构创建的学术环境为环境健康，空气污染和地理空间建模的学习和合作提供了肥沃的土壤。加芬博士将成为环境流行病学和暴露健康影响研究领域的专家，他对综合物理环境有着独特的理解，这将使他成为一名非常成功的独立调查员。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): School based exposure to air pollution poses a specific threat to the respiratory health of children, particularly children with asthma. Home indoor air pollution and ambient pollution has been identified as a risk factor for asthma morbidity in children, however, little attention has been paid to the exposures encountered in the classroom. The school is a unique environment in that it is centrally located, has its own traffic patterns, and a high amount of indoor activity leading to resuspension of pollutants. Furthermore, most children are required to spend a large proportion of their time in this environment. This proposal details a five-year project to provide Dr. Jonathan Gaffin, with training and expertise in the assessment of the physical environment with a specific focus on air pollution in the school environment. Dr. Gaffin will study the role of gaseous and particulate air pollution exposure specific to the classroom environment and measure its health effects in an established cohort of inner city children with asthma enrolled in the Allergens in Inner-City Schools and Childhood Asthma study (PI: Phipatanakul). Separately, using geographical information systems (GIS), Dr. Gaffin will integrate the home and school based exposures into a model that will differentiate the independent role of each site in asthma morbidity in inner city children. This novel approach to integrating an exposure from several micro-environments in relation to asthma morbidity will provide a more complete assessment of the individual exposure risk and may lead to more focused and effective interventions. It also provides the foundation for further evaluation of several concurrent factors related to the physical environment in relation to health and disease. Dr. Gaffin will work under the mentorship of Dr. Phipatanakul, an expert in environmental epidemiology and asthma, in addition to an extraordinary team of researchers, including Drs. Diane Gold, Petros Koutrakis, and Brent Coull, who have committed their time, resources, and expertise to facilitate Dr. Gaffin's career development and the successful completion of the proposed project. Dr. Gaffin has a solid foundation in epidemiology, statistics, and research methodology from his Masters of Medical Science degree in clinical research from Harvard Medical School. During this award period, Dr. Gaffin will hone his skills in environmental epidemiology and learn spatiotemporal techniques for environmental assessments and behaviors of elements of the physical environment with a focus on air pollution and childhood asthma. The academic environment created by the mentor, the institution, Harvard University and its affiliates provides a fertile ground for learning and collaborating specific to environmental health, air pollution, and geospatial modeling. Dr. Gaffin will emerge an expert in the field of environmental epidemiology and exposure health effects research, with a unique understanding of the integrated physical environment that will shape him into a highly successful independent investigator.