Associations between Ambient Air Pollution and Adverse Birth Outcomes in Florida

描述（由申请人提供）：首要的长期目标是成为环境流行病学的领先科学家，并制定一个研究计划，以提高我们对环境暴露在人类健康中的作用的理解。主要的短期研究目标是在佛罗里达大学建立一个独立和合作的研究议程和项目，主要侧重于关于环境暴露，特别是空气污染的流行病学研究。这项职业发展计划将提供必要的资源，通过提供额外的技术技能培训和正式指导，扩大我对与空气污染有关的健康问题的调查，以便：(1)提高我对空气污染对生殖健康影响的认识；(2)在开展环境流行病学研究方面获得进一步的经验，包括研究设计、暴露评估、大数据管理技能和统计建模；(3)提高独立资助成功竞争所必需的技能，包括科学写作、论文开发和资助。特别是，这项指导研究的目标是调查空气污染对胎儿健康的健康影响。据报道，在美国和佛罗里达州，诸如早产和低出生体重等不良妊娠结局的发生率不断上升，这是儿童和成年期死亡和/或发病的主要原因。越来越多的流行病学证据表明，产妇暴露于环境空气污染与不良妊娠结局之间存在关联。然而，研究结果并不一致。这里的目的是评估环境空气污染和佛罗里达州不良妊娠结局之间的关系。本研究将利用相同地理区域和时间段的三个相关数据集：佛罗里达州出生证明数据、美国人口普查数据和来自层次贝叶斯（HB）时空统计模型的插值空气质量数据，该模型提供了更好的空气污染水平的空间分辨率，以便更准确地评估暴露情况。在本研究中，研究人员将：1)使用基于人口的出生队列，通过强调暴露的关键窗口的检测和效应修饰因子的识别来检查空气污染与不良出生结局之间的关系；2)在考虑邻域水平因素（即人口普查区水平变量）的混杂效应和/或效应修正后，应用多层次模型进一步研究这些关联；3)使用时间序列分析来评估空气污染与早产之间的关系；4)为进行空气污染和生殖健康研究制定一项独立拨款提案。这项研究专门针对空气污染对不良妊娠结果的健康影响，最终目标是深入了解其病因，这些病因可以进行修改，以减少这些主要的生殖健康问题。因此，由于不良妊娠结局、其长期健康后果和无处不在的空气污染的发生率不断上升，这项工作对公共卫生至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching long-term goal is to be a leading scientist of environmental epidemiology and to develop a program of research that improves our understanding the role of environmental exposures in human health. The primary short-term research objective is to establish an independent and collaborative research agenda and projects at the University of Florida with a major focus on epidemiological research on environmental exposures, particularly on air pollution. This career development plan will provide the necessary resources to expand my inquiry into health problems related to air pollution by providing training in additional technique skills and formal mentorship to: (1) advance my knowledge of the impacts of air pollution on reproductive health; (2) gain further experiences in the conduct of research in environmental epidemiology, including study design, exposure assessment, large dataset management skills and statistical modeling; and (3) advance the skills which are essential for successful competition of independent grant funding, including scientific writing, manuscript development and grantsmanship. In particular, the goal of this mentored research is to investigate the health effects of air pollution on fetal health. The increasing rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm delivery and low birth weight, which are major causes of mortality and/or morbidity in childhood and adulthood, have been reported in the USA and in Florida. Growing epidemiological evidence suggests associations between maternal exposure to ambient air pollution and adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, the findings have been inconsistent. The intent here is to evaluate the associations between ambient air pollution and adverse pregnancy outcome in Florida. This study will utilize three related datasets for the same geographic area and time periods: the Florida birth certificate data, US census data and the interpolated air quality data from the Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) space-time statistical model, which provides a better spatial resolution of air pollution levels for more accurately assessing exposure. In this study, one will: 1) use a population-based birth cohort to examine the associations between air pollution and adverse birth outcomes by emphasizing on detection of the critical windows of exposure and identification of the effect modifiers; 2) apply multilevel models to further investigate these associations after considering the confounding effects and/or effect modification of neighborhood level factors (i.e. census tract- level variables); 3) use a time-series analysis to assess the associations between air pollution and preterm births; 4) develop a grant proposal for independent funding to conduct a study on air pollution and reproductive health. This study specifically addresses health effects of air pollution on adverse pregnancy outcomes with the ultimate goal of offering insight into their etiological causes, which can be modifiable in order to reduce these major reproductive health problems. Therefore, this work is of critical public health importance because of the increasing rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes, their long-term health consequences and the omnipresent nature of air pollution.