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

描述(申请人提供)：在学校暴露于空气污染对儿童，特别是哮喘儿童的呼吸健康构成具体威胁。家庭室内空气污染和环境污染已被确定为儿童哮喘发病率的危险因素，然而，很少有人关注在课堂上遇到的暴露。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，以及大量的室内活动导致污染物的再悬浮。此外，大多数儿童被要求在这种环境中度过很大比例的时间。该提案详细说明了一个为期五年的项目，该项目旨在为乔纳森·加芬博士提供物理环境评估方面的培训和专业知识，并特别关注学校环境中的空气污染。加芬博士将研究特定于教室环境的气体和颗粒物空气污染暴露的作用，并在市中心学校过敏原和儿童哮喘研究(PI：Phipatanakul)中登记的内城哮喘儿童的既定队列中测量其对健康的影响。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，该模型将区分每个站点在市中心儿童哮喘发病率中的独立作用。这种将几个微环境的暴露与哮喘发病率相结合的新方法将提供对个人暴露风险的更全面的评估，并可能导致更有针对性和有效的干预措施。它还为进一步评估与物理环境有关的几个并发因素提供了基础 健康和疾病。Gaffin博士将在环境流行病学和哮喘专家Phipatanakul博士的指导下工作，此外还有一支非凡的研究团队，包括Diane Gold博士、Petros Koutrakis博士和Brent Coull博士，他们投入了时间、资源和专业知识来促进Gaffin博士的职业发展和拟议项目的成功完成。加芬博士拥有哈佛医学院临床研究医学硕士学位，在流行病学、统计学和研究方法方面拥有坚实的基础。在此次获奖期间，Gaffin博士将磨练他在环境流行病学方面的技能，并学习用于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。导师、该机构、哈佛大学及其附属机构创造的学术环境为学习和合作提供了肥沃的土壤，具体涉及环境健康、空气污染和地理空间建模。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，对综合物理环境具有独特的理解，这将把他塑造成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.