Traffic-related air pollution and obesity formation in children: a longitudinal, multilevel analysis.

BackgroundBiologically plausible mechanisms link traffic-related air pollution to metabolic disorders and potentially to obesity. Here we sought to determine whether traffic density and traffic-related air pollution were positively associated with growth in body mass index (BMI = kg/m2) in children aged 5-11 years.MethodsParticipants were drawn from a prospective cohort of children who lived in 13 communities across Southern California (N = 4550). Children were enrolled while attending kindergarten and first grade and followed for 4 years, with height and weight measured annually. Dispersion models were used to estimate exposure to traffic-related air pollution. Multilevel models were used to estimate and test traffic density and traffic pollution related to BMI growth. Data were collected between 2002-2010 and analyzed in 2011-12.ResultsTraffic pollution was positively associated with growth in BMI and was robust to adjustment for many confounders. The effect size in the adjusted model indicated about a 13.6% increase in annual BMI growth when comparing the lowest to the highest tenth percentile of air pollution exposure, which resulted in an increase of nearly 0.4 BMI units on attained BMI at age 10. Traffic density also had a positive association with BMI growth, but this effect was less robust in multivariate models.ConclusionsTraffic pollution was positively associated with growth in BMI in children aged 5-11 years. Traffic pollution may be controlled via emission restrictions; changes in land use that promote jobs-housing balance and use of public transit and hence reduce vehicle miles traveled; promotion of zero emissions vehicles; transit and car-sharing programs; or by limiting high pollution traffic, such as diesel trucks, from residential areas or places where children play outdoors, such as schools and parks. These measures may have beneficial effects in terms of reduced obesity formation in children

Assessing Stakeholder Preferences for Chesapeake Bay Restoration Options : a stated preference discrete choice-based assessment

Chesapeake 2000 or C2K is a multi-jurisdictional agreement between the states of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, representing the federal government, to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem. This agreement commits the participants to achieve five major restoration goals, 22 sub-objectives or categories, and 102 specific commitments or restoration activities. The five major goals are the following: (1) restore and protect natural living resources; (2) restore and protect vital habitat; (3) restore and protect water quality; (4) promote sound land use; and (5) promote stewardship and community engagement. The sub-categories and specific commitments impose specific restoration requirements relative to each of the five major categories. In 2003, the Chesapeake Bay Commission, utilizing a panel of experts, estimated the cost of achieving all five major objectives equaled approximately $18.7 billion, which equals approximately$21.0 billion in 2007 dollars. Unfortunately, all partners of C2K only committed $5.9 billion ($6.6 billion in 2007 dollars) in funding to achieving the five major objectives. There is, thus, a deficit of $12.8 billion or$14.4 billion in 2007 dollars. The funding available to achieve the goals of C2K is of considerable concern because the single sub-objective of the category of reducing nutrients and sediments requires more than $12.0 billion in 2007 dollars, and this is a major requirement for restoring the health of the Bay’s ecosystem. The cost of restoring the Bay complicates the choices and levels of restoration options. Given the large deficit for achieving the goals and objectives of C2K, it is necessary to assess how restoration might proceed. The available level of funding is simply inadequate for achieving all the goals and objectives necessary to restore the Bay’s ecosystem. In this study, we attempt to provide an assessment of how available funds might be distributed among the restoration goals and objectives in a manner, which generates the greatest social value. (more...

Performances of Different Global Positioning System Devices for Time-Location Tracking in Air Pollution Epidemiological Studies

Background People's time-location patterns are important in air pollution exposure assessment because pollution levels may vary considerably by location. A growing number of studies are using global positioning systems (GPS) to track people's time-location patterns. Many portable GPS units that archive location are commercially available at a cost that makes their use feasible for epidemiological studies. Methods We evaluated the performance of five portable GPS data loggers and two GPS cell phones by examining positional accuracy in typical locations (indoor, outdoor, in-vehicle) and factors that influence satellite reception (building material, building type), acquisition time (cold and warm start), battery life, and adequacy of memory for data storage. We examined stationary locations (eg, indoor, outdoor) and mobile environments (eg, walking, traveling by vehicle or bus) and compared GPS locations to highly-resolved US Geological Survey (USGS) and Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quadrangle (DOQQ) maps. Results The battery life of our tested instruments ranged from <9 hours to 48 hours. The acquisition of location time after startup ranged from a few seconds to >20 minutes and varied significantly by building structure type and by cold or warm start. No GPS device was found to have consistently superior performance with regard to spatial accuracy and signal loss. At fixed outdoor locations, 65%-95% of GPS points fell within 20-m of the corresponding DOQQ locations for all the devices. At fixed indoor locations, 50%-80% of GPS points fell within 20-m of the corresponding DOQQ locations for all the devices except one. Most of the GPS devices performed well during commuting on a freeway, with >80% of points within 10-m of the DOQQ route, but the performance was significantly impacted by surrounding structures on surface streets in highly urbanized areas. Conclusions All the tested GPS devices had limitations, but we identified several devices which showed promising performance for tracking subjects’ time location patterns in epidemiological studies

Competing definitions of contextual environments

BACKGROUND: The growing interest in the effects of contextual environments on health outcomes has focused attention on the strengths and weaknesses of alternate contextual unit definitions for use in multilevel analysis. The present research examined three methods to define contextual units for a sample of children already enrolled in a respiratory health study. The Inclusive Equal Weights Method (M1) and Inclusive Sample Weighted Method (M2) defined communities using the boundaries of the census blocks that incorporated the residences of the CHS participants, except that the former estimated socio-demographic variables by averaging the census block data within each community, while the latter used weighted proportion of CHS participants per block. The Minimum Bounding Rectangle Method (M3) generated minimum bounding rectangles that included 95% of the CHS participants and produced estimates of census variables using the weighted proportion of each block within these rectangles. GIS was used to map the locations of study participants, define the boundaries of the communities where study participants reside, and compute estimates of socio-demographic variables. The sensitivity of census variable estimates to the choice of community boundaries and weights was assessed using standard tests of significance. RESULTS: The estimates of contextual variables vary significantly depending on the choice of neighborhood boundaries and weights. The choice of boundaries therefore shapes the community profile and the relationships between its components (variables). CONCLUSION: Multilevel analysis concerned with the effects of contextual environments on health requires careful consideration of what constitutes a contextual unit for a given study sample, because the alternate definitions may have differential impact on the results. The three alternative methods used in this research all carry some subjectivity, which is embedded in the decision as to what constitutes the boundaries of the communities. The Minimum Bounding Rectangle was preferred because it focused attention on the most frequently used spaces and it controlled potential aggregation problems. There is a need to further examine the validity of different methods proposed here. Given that no method is likely to capture the full complexity of human-environment interactions, we would need baseline data describing people's daily activity patterns along with expert knowledge of the area to evaluate our neighborhood units

Characterizing Polytobacco Use Trajectories and Their Associations With Substance Use and Mental Health Across Mid-Adolescence.

Background:Polytobacco product use is suspected to be common, dynamic across time, and increase risk for adverse behavioral outcomes. We statistically modeled characteristic types of polytobacco use trajectories during mid-adolescence and tested their prospective association with substance use and mental health problems. Methods:Adolescents (N = 3393) in Los Angeles, CA, were surveyed semiannually from 9th to 11th grade. Past 6-month combustible cigarette, e-cigarette, or hookah use (yes/no) over four assessments were analyzed using parallel growth mixture modeling to identify a parsimonious set of polytobacco use trajectories. A tobacco product use trajectory group was used to predict substance use and mental health at the fifth assessment. Results:Three profiles were identified: (1) tobacco nonusers (N = 2291, 67.5%) with the lowest use prevalence (&lt;3%) of all products across all timepoints; (2) polyproduct users (N = 920, 27.1%) with moderate use prevalence of each product (8-35%) that escalated for combustible cigarettes but decreased for e-cigarettes and hookah across time; and (3) chronic polyproduct users (N = 182, 5.4%) with high prevalence of each product use (38-86%) that escalated for combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Nonusers, polyproduct users, and chronic polyproduct users reported successively higher alcohol, marijuana, and illicit drug use and ADHD at the final follow-up, respectively. Both tobacco using groups (vs. nonusers) reported greater odds of depression and anxiety at the final follow-up but did not differ from each other. Conclusions:Adolescent polytobacco use may involve a common moderate risk trajectory and a less common high-risk chronic trajectory. Both trajectories predict substance use and mental health symptomology. Implications:Variation in use and co-use of combustible cigarette, e-cigarette, and hookah use in mid-adolescence can be parsimoniously characterized by a small set common trajectory profiles in which polyproduct use are predominant patterns of tobacco product use, which predict adverse behavioral outcomes. Prevention and policy addressing polytobacco use (relative to single product use) may be optimal tobacco control strategies for youth, which may in turn prevent other forms of substance use and mental health problems

Emerging exposures of developmental toxicants

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The purpose of this review is to identify emerging developmental toxicants that are understudied in children's health. Exposures may arise from new products designed to improve utility, to reduce toxicity, or to replace undesirable chemicals. Exposures to less-toxic chemicals may also be significant if they are very commonly used, thereby generating widespread exposure. Sources of exposure include the workplace, personal, home, and office products; food, water, and air. RECENT FINDINGS: We describe eight exposure categories that contain numerous potential developmental toxicants. References are discussed if reported in PubMed during the past decade at least 10 times more frequently than in 1990-2000. Examples included phthalates, phenols, sunscreens, pesticides, halogenated flame retardants, perfluoroalkyl coatings, nanoparticles, e-cigarettes, and dietary polyphenols. Replacements are often close structural homologs of their precursors. We suggest biomonitoring as preferred means of exposure assessment to emerging chemicals. Some existing analytic methods would require minimal modification to measure these exposures, but others require toxicokinetic and analytic investigation. SUMMARY: A deliberate strategy for biomonitoring of emerging replacement chemicals is warranted, especially in view of concerns regarding developmental toxicity. To prevent adverse health effects, it is important to characterize such exposures before they become widely disseminated

Air Pollution Exposure Assessment for Epidemiologic Studies of Pregnant Women and Children: Lessons Learned from the Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research

The National Children’s Study is considering a wide spectrum of airborne pollutants that are hypothesized to potentially influence pregnancy outcomes, neurodevelopment, asthma, atopy, immune development, obesity, and pubertal development. In this article we summarize six applicable exposure assessment lessons learned from the Centers for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research that may enhance the National Children’s Study: a) Selecting individual study subjects with a wide range of pollution exposure profiles maximizes spatial-scale exposure contrasts for key pollutants of study interest. b) In studies with large sample sizes, long duration, and diverse outcomes and exposures, exposure assessment efforts should rely on modeling to provide estimates for the entire cohort, supported by subject-derived questionnaire data. c) Assessment of some exposures of interest requires individual measurements of exposures using snapshots of personal and microenvironmental exposures over short periods and/or in selected microenvironments. d) Understanding issues of spatial–temporal correlations of air pollutants, the surrogacy of specific pollutants for components of the complex mixture, and the exposure misclassification inherent in exposure estimates is critical in analysis and interpretation. e) “Usual” temporal, spatial, and physical patterns of activity can be used as modifiers of the exposure/outcome relationships. f) Biomarkers of exposure are useful for evaluation of specific exposures that have multiple routes of exposure. If these lessons are applied, the National Children’s Study offers a unique opportunity to assess the adverse effects of air pollution on interrelated health outcomes during the critical early life period

Glutathione-S-transferase M1 regulation of diesel exhaust particle-induced pro-inflammatory mediator expression in normal human bronchial epithelial cells

Background Diesel exhaust particles (DEP) contribute substantially to ambient particulate matter (PM) air pollution in urban areas. Inhalation of PM has been associated with increased incidence of lung disease in susceptible populations. We have demonstrated that the glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1) null genotype could aggravate DEP-induced airway inflammation in human subjects. Given the critical role airway epithelial cells play in the pathogenesis of airway inflammation, we established the GSTM1 deficiency condition in primary bronchial epithelial cells from human volunteers with GSTM1 sufficient genotype (GSTM1+) using GSTM1 shRNA to determine whether GSTM1 deficiency could exaggerate DEP-induced expression of interleukin-8 (IL-8) and IL-1β proteins. Furthermore, the mechanisms underlying GSTM1 regulation of DEP-induced IL-8 and IL-1β expression were also investigated. Methods IL-8 and IL-1β protein levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. GSTM1 deficiency in primary human bronchial epithelial cells was achieved using lentiviral GSTM1 shRNA particles and verified using real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunoblotting. Intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production was evaluated using flow cytometry. Phosphorylation of protein kinases was detected using immunoblotting. Results Exposure of primary human bronchial epithelial cells (GSTM1+) to 25-100 μg/ml DEP for 24 h significantly increased IL-8 and IL-1β protein expression. Knockdown of GSTM1 in these cells further elevated DEP-induced IL-8 and IL-1β expression, implying that GSTM1 deficiency aggravated DEP-induced pro-inflammatory response. DEP stimulation induced the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and Akt, the downstream kinase of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), in GSTM1+ bronchial epithelial cells. Pharmacological inhibition of ERK kinase and PI3K activity blocked DEP-induced IL-8 and IL-1β expression. DEP-induced ERK and Akt phosphorylation could be increased by GSTM1 knockdown. In addition, pretreatment of HBEC with the antioxidant N-acetyl cysteine significantly inhibited DEP-induced ERK and Akt phosphorylation, and subsequent IL-8 and IL-1β expression. Conclusion GSTM1 regulates DEP-induced IL-8 and IL-1β expression in primary human bronchial epithelial cells by modulation of ROS, ERK and Akt signaling

Prenatal metal mixtures and child blood pressure in the Rhea mother-child cohort in Greece

Background: Child blood pressure (BP) is predictive of future cardiovascular risk. Prenatal exposure to metals has been associated with higher BP in childhood, but most studies have evaluated elements individually and measured BP at a single time point. We investigated impacts of prenatal metal mixture exposures on longitudinal changes in BP during childhood and elevated BP at 11 years of age. Methods: The current study included 176 mother-child pairs from the Rhea Study in Heraklion, Greece and focused on eight elements (antimony, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, lead, magnesium, molybdenum, selenium) measured in maternal urine samples collected during pregnancy (median gestational age at collection: 12 weeks). BP was measured at approximately 4, 6, and 11 years of age. Covariate-adjusted Bayesian Varying Coefficient Kernel Machine Regression and Bayesian Kernel Machine Regression (BKMR) were used to evaluate metal mixture impacts on baseline and longitudinal changes in BP (from ages 4 to 11) and the development of elevated BP at age 11, respectively. BKMR results were compared using static versus percentile-based cutoffs to define elevated BP. Results: Molybdenum and lead were the mixture components most consistently associated with BP. J-shaped relationships were observed between molybdenum and both systolic and diastolic BP at age 4. Similar associations were identified for both molybdenum and lead in relation to elevated BP at age 11. For molybdenum concentrations above the inflection points (~ 40–80 μg/L), positive associations with BP at age 4 were stronger at high levels of lead. Lead was positively associated with BP measures at age 4, but only at high levels of molybdenum. Potential interactions between molybdenum and lead were also identified for BP at age 11, but were sensitive to the cutoffs used to define elevated BP. Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to high levels of molybdenum and lead, particularly in combination, may contribute to higher BP at age 4. These early effects appear to persist throughout childhood, contributing to elevated BP in adolescence. Future studies are needed to identify the major sources of molybdenum and lead in this population