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

描述（由申请人提供）：学校的空气污染对儿童的呼吸健康构成特殊威胁，特别是患有哮喘的儿童。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，很少注意到在教室中遇到的暴露。学校是一个独特的环境，因为它位于中心位置，有自己的交通模式，大量的室内活动导致污染物的再悬浮。此外，大多数孩子被要求在这种环境中花费大量的时间。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博士将研究暴露在教室环境中的气体和颗粒空气污染的作用，并测量其对已建立的市中心哮喘儿童队列的健康影响，这些儿童参加了市中心学校过敏原和儿童哮喘研究（PI: Phipatanakul）。另外，使用地理信息系统（GIS）， Gaffin博士将把家庭和学校的暴露情况整合到一个模型中，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。这种整合与哮喘发病率相关的几种微环境暴露的新方法将提供对个体暴露风险的更完整评估，并可能导致更有针对性和更有效的干预。它还为进一步评价与物理环境相关的几个并发因素提供了基础

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.