Project
Summary
Ambient air pollution is a major pediatric public health concern due to its ubiquity and increased exposure patterns
affiliated with climate change over the next decade. Despite significant improvements in overall levels of air pollution
over the 20 years, 62% of children still live in areas that do not meet the US Environmental Protection Agency National
Ambient Air Quality Standards. Consistent evidence has shown that ambient air pollution exposure is detrimental to
children's respiratory health due primarily to behavioral patterns and timing of exposure during a sensitive window of
respiratory, endocrine, and immune system development, maturation, and modulation. Given the growing risk of
present and future pandemics, and consistent exposure to environmental stimuli, understanding the role of air pollution
on pediatric respiratory disease is of pressing public health importance. While
overall
distributed
and
respiratory
Minoritized
poorer
respiratory
data
pediatric
discharge
project
Statewide
estimates
enrollment
respiratory
support
using
characteristics
neighborhood-level
aims
young children in the United States
have a high burden of acute r espiratory diseases, r espiratory related hospital admissions are not equally
across racial and ethnic populations. Rates of hospitalization are consistently greater among Black
Latinx populations. These observed r acial and ethnic inequalities often remain after adjustment for traditional
risk f actors but are reduced when environmental and sociodemographic factors are considered.
and low-income populations are more likely to reside in areas with greater levels of air pollution,
quality built environment, and higher neighborhood deprivation, all factors which may impact acute
disease in children. To bridge these gaps in knowledge, the proposed work will capitalize on existing
to examine the complex relationships between air pollution and neighborhood-level characteristics on
acute respiratory disease. The proposed study is a secondary data analysis of administrative hospital
data to examine environmental risk factors for pediatric acute respiratory disease. The proposed
will utilize participant data that has already been collected as part of the New York Department of Health
Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) dataset. The addition of air pollution
and neighborhood-level characteristics to the existing data does not require participant contact or new
of participants. Specific outcomes of interest include asthma exacerbation, acute upper and lower
infections, allergic rhinitis, and otitis media. This R03 will provide the protected time and programming
o accomplish the following aims: (1) Examine the effect of air pollution on acute respiratory disease
a case-crossover study design, (2) Determine the effect of objective measures of neighborhood level
on acute respiratory disease, and (3) Using a mixture model, evaluate which highly correlated
characteristics and air pollution metrics are associated with acute espiratory disease. All
will assess whether these associations vary across age, race, ethnicity, and/or sex.
t
r
Results from the
proposed work will enhance the current knowledge by understanding the combined effect of air pollution and
neighborhood-level exposures on respiratory disease in a generalizable sample of children
