Objective

1. Objective To investigate whether particulate air pollutants exposure may affect long-term changes of childhood atopic disease and respiratory inflammation? To investigate whether particulate air pollutants exposure and genetic polymorphism may have interaction to affect long-term changes of childhood atopic disease and respiratory inflammation? Materials and Methods Study design Subjects selection Reference population selection Students of elementary and middle school age. School chosen: Within 2 km catchment area of Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency monitoring station and Aerosol Supersite in Sinjhuang City, Taipei County. Completed the respiratory health questionnaire. Subjects selection Based on criteria established from questionnaire Current asthma children: Children with physician-diagnosed asthma and ever have dyspnea with wheezing in the last 12 months, 33 person. Current allergic rhinitis children: Children with physician-diagnosed allergic rhinitis and ever have problem with sneezing or a runny or blocked nose when did not have a cold or the flu in the past 12 months, 33 person. Healthy control children: Children without any atopic disease, 33 person. Exposure variables Criteria air pollutants: PM10, SO2, NO, NO2, O3, CO Fine particulate air pollutants: PM2.5, Nitrite, Sulfate, Organic Carbon, Element Carbon Biologic particulate air pollutants: Total spore, Ascospores, Basidiospores, Cladosporium, Aspergillus/Penicillium, Arthrinium, spores/m3 , take log10 Outcome variables Event record of atopic disease: Attack, Symptom, Medication, Sick leave, Clinic visit, Emergency room visit, and Hospitalization Lung function: FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and FEF25-75% Nasal inflammation: Cytology (Neutrophil, Eosinophil, and Monocyte), Chemokine (CXCL-8) Airway inflammation: Pentane Effect modifiers Genetic polymorphism Potential confounders Outdoor weather condition Demographic factors Family atopy history Indoor environmental exposure Statistic methods For exposure variable: On date biological particulate air pollutants For outcome variable Childhood lung function: Adjust for child sex, age, and height Self standardization of individual repeated measurements. Nasal inflammation cell count percent Eosinophil cell/epithelium cell Self standardization of individual repeated measurements. Evaluated the lung function and nasal inflammation effect of on date biological particulate air pollutants exposure Take daily mean for each variable Simple linear regression Preliminary Result From Oct. 2007 to Jun. 2008, we completed 8 times field studies and enrolled 685 person-time data. (Response rate, 86.5%). We found children with current asthma have more male and higher Eosinophil cell/Epithelium cell level. We also found children with current allergic rhinitis were older and have higher FVC, higher FEV1, higher FEV1/FVC, higher FEF25-75%, and lower Neutrophil cell/Epithelium cell level (Table 1). The distribution of air pollutants during studying period were shown in Table 2. The on date biological particulate air pollutants exposures were negative related to the lung function and positive related to nasal inflammation(Table 3). Table 1. Demographic, lung function, and nasal inflammation characteristics in subjects Table 2. The distribution of air pollution during studying period Table 3. The lung function and nasal inflammation effect of on date biological particulate air pollutants exposure Future Work Up to now, we only focused on biological particulate air pollutants effects to lung function and partial nasal inflammation. However, in future work, we will evaluate other air pollutants (such as criteria or fine particulate air pollutants) effects to various respiratory health biomarker and respiratory disease attack. Moreover, the effect modifications of genetic polymorphism is also another important concern. 1Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, National Taiwan University, Taipei, TAIWAN, 2Graduate Institute of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, TAIWAN,3Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan, TAIWAN,4Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine and NTU Hospital, Taipei, TAIWAN Respiratory effects of particulate air pollutants on genetically susceptible peopleBing-Yu Chen1, Hsing Jasmine Chao2, Chung-Te Lee3, Chang-Chuan Chan4, Yueliang Leon Guo4