Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Childhood Asthma in the United States: A Burden of Disease Assessment

Asthma is one of the leading chronic airway diseases among children in the United States and across the world. Emerging evidence indicates that traffic-related air pollution leads to the onset of childhood asthma. In this work, the researchers estimated the number of incident asthma cases among children attributable to three common traffic-related air pollutants across the contiguous United States for the years 2000 and 2010, noting changes and trends in the burden of disease over this decade. Because burden of disease assessments typically rely on national-level incidence rates for the health outcomes of interest, the researchers also explored, in a nested sub-study, the impact of using a constant national-level childhood asthma incidence rate versus a more granular spatially varying rate at the state level. In this sub-study, the researchers focused on one pollutant and one year and estimated the burden of incident childhood asthma cases attributable to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), a criteria pollutant and a good marker of traffic, in the contiguous United States. This report presents the first study to estimate the childhood asthma burden of disease on a national scale for the contiguous United States and also presents the results for the major 498 cities and every county in an interactive, accessible, and open-access manner. The researchers utilized the best available data sets and state-of-the-art research—using small-scale geographical units for both the census data and air pollution exposure estimation, and meta-analysis-derived exposure-response functions from the most recent and largest study that linked traffic-related air pollution to the onset of childhood asthma. The combination of this effort and using a standard burden of disease assessment framework enabled the researchers to estimate the burden of new childhood asthma cases attributable to NO₂, PM₂.₅, and PM₁₀ both separately and over a decade’s period. The attributable burden of childhood asthma dropped by 33 percent between 2000 and 2010. However, a significant proportion of cases can still be prevented. The researchers also estimated new state-specific asthma incidence rates for the contiguous United States. Using state-specific incidence rates versus a constant national incidence rate resulted in a small change in the NO₂-attributable burden of disease at the national level but had a more prominent impact at the state level, which may have important implications for monetary evaluation and the regulatory process.

• Record URL:
  http://www.carteeh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/01-10-TTI-Traffic-Related-Air-Pollution-and-Childhood-Asthma-in-the-United-States-A-Burden-of-Disease-Assessment-Khreis.pdf
• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/59169
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy, and Health

  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
  College Station, TX  United States  77843

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Khreis, Haneen
  • Alotaibi, Raed
• Publication Date: 2021-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 60p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pollution; Children; Diseases and medical conditions; Nitrogen dioxide; Particulates; Pollutants; States; Traffic congestion; Trend (Statistics)
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01767119
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: TTI-01-10
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747128
• Files: UTC, NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Mar 22 2021 10:29AM