Association of tailpipe-related and nontailpipe-related air pollution exposure with neuroimaging outcomes.

Background: Long-term exposure to air pollution may be related to neural atrophy or cerebrovascular pathology. A major source of air pollution is vehicle traffic, which is modifiable. In this study, we estimated associations between four traffic-related air pollutants and five neuroimaging biomarkers.

Air pollution exposures and adverse childhood experiences in relation to sleep health in middle childhood.

Purpose/aims: Sleep health is an understudied but potentially important outcome of joint air pollution and psychosocial stress exposures in children. This study examined children's sleep health outcomes in relation to air pollution (PM, NO, O; aim 1), adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; aim 2), and air-pollution-by-ACEs interactions (aim 3).

Methods: Participants were from ECHO-PATHWAYS, a three-cohort consortium.

Non-communicable disease (NCD) risk among people living with HIV in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: evidence from a randomised trial of community-based differentiated service delivery.

Introduction: As differentiated HIV services provided outside of clinics are scaled up, clients may have fewer interactions with ancillary services for non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention and management traditionally offered within facilities. This study was embedded in the DO ART randomised trial (2016-2019), which demonstrated that community-based differentiated service delivery (DSD) improved HIV viral suppression compared with facility-based care. We assessed NCD risk among men and women living with HIV accessing community-based DSD versus facility-based care in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Ultrafine particles and late-life cognitive function: Influence of stationary mobile monitoring design on health inferences.

Growing evidence links ultrafine particles (UFP) to neurotoxicity, but human studies remain limited. Various mobile monitoring approaches have been used to develop air pollution exposure models. However, whether design choices impact epidemiology, including for UFP and cognitive function, remains unclear.

Exposure measurement error in air pollution health effect studies: a pooled analysis of personal exposure validation studies in 17 communities across the United States.

Despite demonstrated adverse health effects of air pollution, the impact of exposure measurement error on these associations remains unexplored, especially for NO and PM components. We compiled daily personal measurements of PM, NO, and PM components - including Al, Cd, Fe, K, Ni, Pb, S, and Si - from previous studies as true exposure indicators. These were compared against ambient concentrations from the nearest monitors.

Early-Life Ozone Exposure and Asthma and Wheeze in Children.

Importance: Ozone (O3) is the most frequently exceeded air pollutant standard in the US. While short-term exposure is associated with acute respiratory health, the epidemiologic evidence linking postnatal O3 exposure to childhood asthma and wheeze is inconsistent and rarely evaluated as a mixture with other air pollutants.

Objectives: To determine associations between ambient O3 and subsequent asthma and wheeze outcomes both independently and in mixture with fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in regions with low annual O3 concentrations.

An assessment of organophosphate ester mixtures and the placental transcriptome.

Prenatal exposure to organophosphate ester (OPE) chemicals, commonly used as flame retardants and plasticizers, has been associated with adverse birth outcomes. The placenta is a critical fetal organ and therefore may be involved in pathogenesis of birth outcomes. The goal of this study was to evaluate associations of 10 maternal urinary OPE metabolites, individually and as a mixture, with the placental transcriptome at birth in the Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood (CANDLE) study.

Association of Tailpipe-Related and Nontailpipe-Related Air Pollution Exposure with Cognitive Decline in the Chicago Health and Aging Project.

Background: Evidence suggests that long-term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of dementia and related cognitive outcomes. A major source of air pollution is automotive traffic, which is modifiable by technological and regulatory interventions.

Objectives: We examined associations of four traffic-related air pollutants with rates of cognitive decline in a cohort of older adults.

Environmental and dietary factors associated with urinary OH-PAHs in mid-pregnancy in a large multi-site study.

Background: PAH exposure is associated with adverse health outcomes, but exposure sources in pregnancy are not well-understood.

Objectives: We examined associations between urinary OH-PAHs during pregnancy and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and short-term ambient air pollution exposure. Participants included 1603 pregnant non-smokers in three cohorts from 7 sites across the USA.

Modeling HPV Self-Sampling Impact on Cervical Cancer in East African Immigrants.

Introduction: Cervical cancer screening uptake among East African immigrants in the U.S. is low.

National PM spatiotemporal model integrating intensive monitoring data and land use regression in a likelihood-based universal kriging framework in the United States: 2000-2019.

Nationwide PM exposure models typically rely on regulatory monitoring data as the only ground-level measurements. In this study, we develop a high-resolution spatiotemporal PM model for the contiguous United States from 2000 to 2019 with dense monitoring data at both regulatory and residential sites. Specifically, we combine publicly-available data from 1843 regulatory monitors with our own set of multiple 2-week measurements at 939 residential locations.

Design of a pragmatic trial integrating human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling into primary care to reduce cervical cancer screening disparities in Somali American individuals: The Isbaar project.

Background: Somali American individuals have lower cervical cancer screening rates than the U.S. general population.

Assessment of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution: An exposure framework.

Background: Exposure to ambient air pollution is associated with morbidity and mortality, making it an important public health concern. Emissions from motorized traffic are a common source of air pollution but evaluating the contribution of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) emissions to health risks is challenging because it is difficult to disentangle the contribution of individual air pollution sources to exposure contrasts in an epidemiological study.

Objective: This paper describes a new framework to identify whether air pollution differences reflect contrasts in TRAP exposures.

Performance of patient-collected dried blood specimens for HIV-1 viral load testing in South Africa.

Objective: Evaluate the clinical utility of patient-collected dried blood spots (DBS) in measuring HIV-1 viral load (VL) for monitoring antiretroviral therapy (ART) compared to provider-collected DBS and blood plasma.

Design: In a randomized trial of community-based delivery of ART in South Africa, we assessed performance of: DBS specimens compared to plasma, and participant-collected vs. staff-collected DBS specimens, to measure HIV-1 VL.

RNAseqCovarImpute: a multiple imputation procedure that outperforms complete case and single imputation differential expression analysis.

Missing covariate data is a common problem that has not been addressed in observational studies of gene expression. Here, we present a multiple imputation method that accommodates high dimensional gene expression data by incorporating principal component analysis of the transcriptome into the multiple imputation prediction models to avoid bias. Simulation studies using three datasets show that this method outperforms complete case and single imputation analyses at uncovering true positive differentially expressed genes, limiting false discovery rates, and minimizing bias.

Urinary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolite concentrations in three pregnancy cohorts from 7 U.S. study sites.

Objective: Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) is associated with adverse birth and developmental outcomes in children. We aimed to describe prenatal PAH exposures in a large, multisite U.S.

Leveraging low-cost sensors to predict nitrogen dioxide for epidemiologic exposure assessment.

Background: Statistical models of air pollution enable intra-urban characterization of pollutant concentrations, benefiting exposure assessment for environmental epidemiology. The new generation of low-cost sensors facilitate the deployment of dense monitoring networks and can potentially be used to improve intra-urban models of air pollution.

Objective: Develop and evaluate a spatiotemporal model for nitrogen dioxide (NO) in the Puget Sound region of WA, USA for the Adult Changes in Thought Air Pollution (ACT-AP) study and assess the contribution of low-cost sensor data to the model's performance through cross-validation.