We recognized that many health outcomes are associated with air pollution, but in this project launched by the US EPA, the intent was to assess the role of exposure to ambient air pollutants as risk factors only for respiratory effects in children. The NHANES-III database is a valuable resource for assessing children's respiratory health and certain risk factors, but lacks monitoring data to estimate subjects' exposures to ambient air pollutants. Since the 1970s, EPA has regularly monitored levels of several ambient air pollutants across the country and these data may be used to estimate NHANES subject's exposure to ambient air pollutants. The first stage of the project eventually evolved into assessing different estimation methods before adopting the estimates to evaluate respiratory health. Specifically, this paper describes an effort using EPA's AIRS monitoring data to estimate ozone and PM10 levels at census block groups. We limited those block groups to counties visited by NHANES-III to make the project more manageable and apply four different interpolation methods to the monitoring data to derive air concentration levels. Then we examine method-specific differences in concentration levels and determine conditions under which different methods produce significantly different concentration values. We find that different interpolation methods do not produce dramatically different estimations in most parts of the US where monitor density was relatively low. However, in areas where monitor density was relatively high (i.e., California), we find substantial differences in exposure estimates across the interpolation methods. Our results offer some insights into terms of using the EPA monitoring data for the chosen spatial interpolation methods.
This study builds on earlier work investigating statistical relationships between sociodemographic characteristics of populations and their residential proximity to indus-
The prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was evaluated in 12,980 lifelong nonsmoking adults who participated in one of three National US Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Also evaluated were the relationships between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and age, sex, ethnicity, education, income, and certain environmental and occupational factors. Overall, 4% of men and 5% of women reported physician-diagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Prevalence increased with age and with decreasing household income, was higher in Whites than in non-Whites, and was particularly high in Hispanic women. Further research is needed to explain the excess risk for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in economically disadvantaged nonsmokers, and to assess the role of environmental tobacco smoke in nonsmokers' risk for the disease.
The authors examined influences of asthma and household environment (passive smoking, use of a gas stove, and having a dog or cat) on five measures of spirometric lung function among 8- to 16-year-old subjects, as measured cross-sectionally in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) (1988-1994). In regression models, independent variables included asthma status, household environmental factors, age, and anthropometric measurements. Regression analyses were weighted by the NHANES III examination sample weighting factor, and results were adjusted for clustering in the sampling design. There were distinct sex differences in the results. In girls, lung function was lowest among active asthmatics taking prescription respiratory medicine, whereas lung function in other active and inactive asthmatics did not differ greatly from that in nonasthmatics. In boys, however, all groups of asthmatics had substantially lower lung function than nonasthmatics. Differences in lung function between active asthmatics and nonasthmatics were stable with increasing age. However, the lung function of inactive asthmatic girls and boys returned to and diverged from nonasthmatics' levels, respectively. In asthmatic girls, passive smoking was associated with reduced lung function; having a dog or cat was associated with increased lung function; and gas stove use was associated with reduced lung function among subjects not taking prescription respiratory medicine.
This paper summarizes existing data on the size and composition of the federal environmental health workforce, delineates the major categories of activities carried out by its members, identifies current and emerging issues that are likely to affect workforce activities, and makes qualitative inferences about future
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