Mobile Sampling of Air Pollutants to Assess Exposure in a Large Cohort of Childre

描述(申请人提供)：交通邻近研究表明，在交通附近居住或上学对儿童慢性呼吸道健康有显著影响，但还没有人能够确定哪个污染物成分(S)对这些影响负有责任。Fruin博士的研究目标是为空气污染慢性病流行病学提供一种新的暴露评估方法，使用高度时间和空间分辨率的移动测量，对超细颗粒、颗粒结合的多环芳烃、粗PM和NO2进行测量，这些污染物可能是导致空气污染的污染物，这些污染物在道路附近显示出尖锐的(但不完全相同的)浓度梯度。拟议的采样平台(安装在混合动力电动汽车中)将允许对动态曝光进行空间和日间表征，这是目前使用固定地点监测所不能做到的。将研究在学校和家里一天中的时间和特定地点暴露与支气管炎症状、喘息和哮喘(最常见的慢性儿童疾病)的关系。这项研究将在南加州大学儿童健康研究(CHS)的一个大队列中进行，CHS是一项关于空气污染对儿童健康影响的有影响力的纵向研究，该研究跟踪了从幼儿园到高中的11000多名儿童。CHS是现有健康和暴露数据的丰富来源，由一个才华横溢的研究团队进行，他们有丰富的发现历史，极大地促进了我们对空气污染影响的理解。斯科特·弗鲁鲁博士于2007年加入南加州大学预防医学部的这个团队，担任环境健康部门的助理教授，该部门自1992年以来一直进行CHS。2003年，弗鲁鲁博士在加州空气资源委员会工作期间，获得了加州大学洛杉矶分校公共卫生学院的博士学位。这个为期五年的发展奖的目标是为Fruin博士提供技能和专业知识，使他在获得必要的专业知识后，成为空气污染暴露评估领域的独立研究员，将改进的暴露评估技术整合到像CHS这样的大型流行病学研究中。他的职业发展计划将建立在：1)加强空间统计和地理信息系统(GIS)工具方面的专业知识，以便能够根据新的测量技术有效地建立时空暴露模型；2)加强对呼吸健康终点的了解；3)加强环境流行病学方面的专业知识，将呼吸健康终点与改进后的接触估计联系起来。弗鲁鲁博士将在第一年和第二年进行一项雄心勃勃的实地研究，在进行这两个领域的专家指导的同时，直接应用新的专业知识。三位高素质的导师将监督他的培训。罗布·麦康奈尔(环境流行病学)将担任主要导师，而埃德·阿沃尔(暴露评估)和吉姆·高德曼博士(空间生物统计学)将担任共同导师。更多的顾问和CHS调查人员也将加强这种合作和高效的研究环境，这是新的调查人员发展多学科技能的理想环境，这是本提案的目标。 与公共健康相关：在城市地区，高暴露于交通废气中是无处不在的，并与许多不利的健康影响有关。提出了新的测量和暴露建模技术，以向流行病学家提供所需的空间和时间分辨率，以解释每天时间和特定地点的暴露差异。这将提高暴露评估的准确性，并有助于确定交通排放中的哪些成分对观察到的健康影响负有最大责任。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Traffic proximity studies show significant chronic childhood respiratory health effects from living or going to school near traffic, but no one has yet been able to determine which pollutant component(s) are responsible for these effects. The objective of Dr. Fruin's research is to provide a novel approach to exposure assessment for air pollution chronic disease epidemiology, using highly time- and spatially-resolved mobile measurements of ultrafine particles, particle-bound PAHs, coarse PM, and NO2, likely causal pollutants which show sharp- but not identical-near-road concentration gradients. The proposed sampling platform (housed in a hybrid electric vehicle) will permit spatial and diurnal characterization of dynamic exposures not currently possible using fixed-location monitoring. Associations of time-of-day and location-specific exposures at school and home with bronchitic symptoms, wheeze and asthma (the most common chronic childhood disease) will be examined. The research will be conducted in a large cohort of the University of Southern California Children's Health Study (CHS), an influential longitudinal study of the health effects of air pollution on children, which has followed over 11,000 children from kindergarten through high school. The CHS is a rich source of existing health and exposure data, conducted by a talented research team with a productive history of findings that have greatly advanced our understanding of air pollution effects. Dr. Scott Fruin joined this team in the Department of Preventive Medicine at USC in 2007 as assistant professor in the Environmental Health Division, which has conducted the CHS since 1992. Dr. Fruin received his doctorate in 2003 from UCLA's School of Public Health while working at the California Air Resources Board. The goal of this five-year development award is to provide Dr. Fruin with the skills and expertise to become an independent researcher in the field of air pollution exposure assessment as he gains the essential expertise to integrate improved exposure assessment techniques into large epidemiological studies like the CHS. His career development plan will build: 1) improved expertise in spatial statistics and geographic information systems (GIS) tools, to be able to effectively build spatio-temporal exposure models from the new measurement techniques; 2) improved understanding of respiratory health endpoints; and 3) improved expertise in environmental epidemiology, to link respiratory health endpoints to the improved exposure estimates. Dr. Fruin will take coursework and receive mentoring from experts in each of these fields while applying new expertise directly as he conducts an ambitious field study in Years One and Two. Three highly-qualified mentors will supervise his training. Rob McConnell (environmental epidemiology) will serve as the primary mentor, while Ed Avol (exposure assessment) and Dr. Jim Gauderman (spatial biostatistics) will serve as co-mentors. Additional advisors and CHS investigators will also enhance this collegial and highly productive research environment that is ideal for a new investigator to develop the multi-disciplinary skills that are the objective of this proposal. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: High exposure to traffic emissions is ubiquitous in urban areas and has been linked to numerous adverse health effects. New measurement and exposure modeling techniques are proposed to provide epidemiologists the spatial and temporal resolution needed to account for time-of-day and location-specific exposure differences. This will improve exposure assessment accuracy and help determine which components in traffic emissions are most responsible for the observed health effects.