A large number of children are chronically exposed to high levels of ambient air pollutants. Acute respiratory effects from ambient levels are well documented; however, effects from chronic exposures have not been as extensively studied. We are conducting a prospective cohort study (Children's Health Study (CHS)), designed to determine the respiratory health effects of chronic exposure to ambient air pollution among children and adolescents in 12 southern California communities. Preliminary results from this study indicate that chronic exposure to air pollutants decreases the rate of lung function growth and increases the frequency and severity of respiratory illnesses. Intraindividual variations in the magnitude of effects suggest that some children may be more susceptible to air pollutants than others. Diet and genetic factors, as well as age, and health status, may affect susceptibility. We propose to determine whether 1) dietary intake of fruits, vegetables and antioxidant nutrients, and 2) polymorphisms in genes involved in lung defenses (GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1, MPO, TNFa) modify the effect of air pollution on respiratory health.
These aims will be accomplished by assessing diet and genotypes of participants in the CHS, the ongoing prospective cohort study. The CHS collects annual pulmonary function tests, extensive data for modeling total personal exposures, annual questionnaire-based data on symptoms and respiratory illnesses, and data on the occurrence of respiratory illnesses using a school absence monitoring system. To assess variation in susceptibility, we will recruit all active CHS cohort members (2500) and graduates from the CHS (500), collect dietary intake data using Harvard University's Youth/Adolescent Questionnaire, a food frequency questionnaire designed and validated for older children, and add a laboratory component for genotyping using tested methods for collection of buccal cells and RFLP/PCR assays. Questionnaire-based data will be collected during school visits for active cohort members and by mail for graduates. Self-reported physician diagnoses and hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses will be validated. Findings from this study have the potential to refine knowledge of the dose-response relationship for air pollutants and improve strategies to prevent their adverse respiratory effects.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HL061768-03
Application #
6390164
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG4-EDC-2 (02))
Program Officer
Croxton, Thomas
Project Start
1999-09-30
Project End
2004-08-31
Budget Start
2001-09-01
Budget End
2002-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2001
Total Cost
$510,885
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Southern California
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
041544081
City
Los Angeles
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
90089
Urman, Robert; Eckel, Sandrah; Deng, Huiyu et al. (2018) RISK EFFECTS OF NEAR-ROADWAY POLLUTANTS AND ASTHMA STATUS ON BRONCHITIC SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN. Environ Epidemiol 2:
Kothari, Parul H; Qiu, Weiliang; Croteau-Chonka, Damien C et al. (2018) Role of local CpG DNA methylation in mediating the 17q21 asthma susceptibility gasdermin B (GSDMB)/ORMDL sphingolipid biosynthesis regulator 3 (ORMDL3) expression quantitative trait locus. J Allergy Clin Immunol 141:2282-2286.e6
Zhang, Yue; Salam, Muhammad T; Berhane, Kiros et al. (2017) Genetic and epigenetic susceptibility of airway inflammation to PM2.5 in school children: new insights from quantile regression. Environ Health 16:88
Zhang, Yue; Berhane, Kiros (2016) Dynamic Latent Trait Models with Mixed Hidden Markov Structure for Mixed Longitudinal Outcomes. J Appl Stat 43:704-720
Breton, Carrie V; Yao, Jin; Millstein, Josh et al. (2016) Prenatal Air Pollution Exposures, DNA Methyl Transferase Genotypes, and Associations with Newborn LINE1 and Alu Methylation and Childhood Blood Pressure and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness in the Children's Health Study. Environ Health Perspect 124:1905-1912
Eckel, Sandrah P; Zhang, Zilu; Habre, Rima et al. (2016) Traffic-related air pollution and alveolar nitric oxide in southern California children. Eur Respir J 47:1348-56
Salam, Muhammad T; Lin, Pi-Chu; Eckel, Sandrah P et al. (2015) Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Promoter Haplotypes and Residential Traffic-Related Air Pollution Jointly Influence Exhaled Nitric Oxide Level in Children. PLoS One 10:e0145363
Salam, Muhammad T; Avoundjian, Tigran; Knight, Wendy M et al. (2015) Genetic Ancestry and Asthma and Rhinitis Occurrence in Hispanic Children: Findings from the Southern California Children's Health Study. PLoS One 10:e0135384
Eckel, Sandrah P; Linn, William S; Salam, Muhammad T et al. (2015) Spirometry effects on conventional and multiple flow exhaled nitric oxide in children. J Asthma 52:198-204
Zhang, Yue; Berhane, Kiros; Eckel, Sandrah P et al. (2015) Determinants of Children's Exhaled Nitric Oxide: New Insights from Quantile Regression. PLoS One 10:e0130505

Showing the most recent 10 out of 86 publications