UCLA School of Public Health to Lead Consortium Addressing Effects of Air Pollution on Asthma Epidemic; South Coast AQMD Provides Funding

Date: March 16, 2004

• UCLA researchers will estimate the effects of air pollution exposure on the risk of hospitalization for acute respiratory illness and asthma in children ages 0-5 in the Los Angeles area. The study will begin to fill the gap in research on health effects in infancy and early childhood, a critical period since a child’s lungs continue to undergo important development in the early years of life. The onset of up to 80 percent of persistent asthma occurs prior to age 6.
• University of Southern California researchers, in conjunction with the longitudinal Children’s Health Study, will investigate how pollution varies with local traffic near the homes of children in Long Beach to determine whether traffic-related air pollution causes new cases of asthma. With 80 percent of the area’s air pollution attributed to traffic-related pollutants, examining the role of traffic is a key element in understanding the effects of air pollution on asthma.
• A complementary study based at UC Irvine will follow 64 children in Riverside and Eastern Los Angeles County. Each child will carry a personal air sampler in a backpack to measure their exposure to fine particulate matter and other important traffic-related pollutants. By measuring exhaled nitric oxide in the breath of the children, investigators will study whether combustion-related pollutants are more strongly associated with exhaled nitric oxide than particle mass alone. This study is important because current EPA regulations are based on mass measurements, which do not account for differences in the composition of particles.
• A team from UCLA and UC San Francisco will examine the expression of proteins as a way of identifying the biological mechanisms by whic h air pollution incites airway inflammation. By taking samples from the lungs of people with asthma who have been exposed to air pollution, investigators will look for “markers” indicating oxidative stress and inflammation. These tools will be helpful in future clinical studies to identify human subjects that may be more prone to asthma exacerbation by air pollutants.
• UCLA researchers will pursue additional information from previous findings showing that certain compounds in air pollution contract smooth muscle in the lung. This contraction occurs under conditions that indicate the involvement of a key inflammatory receptor, the vanillin receptor. The study exposes a cellular system to small quantities of particulate matter. Responses to the exposure will be measured in terms of key steps in the activation of the receptor. This project aims to determine the molecular basis for the responses and the nature of the chemical reactions involved.
• University of Southern California engineers will design, test and deploy a new type of aerosol concentrator. Until recently, researchers had been limited to using artificially generated particles for their tests. New concentrators allow scientists to collect real-world ambient air for analysis. However, these machines tend to require constant supervision. The new concentrator will require very little supervision and be able to run non-stop for up to two weeks, allowing investigators to collect large amounts of particles enabling them to better approximate actual exposure.