The Health Effects Institute
"A Partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Industry"

 7:00–8:25         Breakfast

8:30      Hot Topics! News from HEI

Chairs: Mark Utell, University of Rochester Medical Center and Chair of the HEI Research Committee, and Daniel Tosteson, Harvard Medical School and Chair of the HEI Review Committee

This session will focus on new HEI initiatives and interesting projects. Topics will include highlights of the HEI Strategic Plan for 2005–2010, progress in the ACES project, which will characterize, and evaluate health effects of, emissions from engines designed to meet the 2007 and 2010 heavy-duty diesel standards, and plans for research to identify PM components associated with toxicity, including description of a new website with air quality information to facilitate research.

8:30      Introduction, Chairs

8:35      HEI Strategic Plan Dan Greenbaum, HEI (slides, handout)

9:00      PM components initiative
Jane Warren, HEI (slides, handout)
Christian Seigneur, AER (slides, handout)

9:50      Update on ACES diesel assessment program
Maria Costantini, HEI (slides, handout)
Joe Somers, US EPA (slides, handout)

10:25    Discussion

10:40    Break

11:00–12:30      Poster Session II
            Ongoing research on air toxics, particulate matter, diesel exhaust, and other pollutants.

12:30–1:55        Lunch

 2:00     Air Pollution and Children's Health: Role of Prenatal and Early Life Exposures on Fetal and Childhood Development—Long-Term Effects on Health

Chairs: Ira Tager, University of California at Berkeley and HEI Research Committee, and Germaine Buck Louis, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

This session focuses on the role of early life and long-term exposure to ambient air pollution on children’s heath, especially on respiratory effects. Speakers will provide an overview of mechanisms and key windows of susceptibility from conception through childhood, with emphasis on how these exposures may affect developmental processes and possibly increase the risk of future chronic disease. The possible influence of other key factors on air pollution related effects will be discussed.

2:00      Toward a clearer understanding of the impact of environmental exposures on child health 
Germaine Buck Louis (slides, handout)

2:20      Effect of exposure at different time windows during prenatal and childhood development
Lisbeth Knudsen, University of Copenhagen (slides, handout)

2:50      The potential influence of poverty and diet on the effect of air pollution on children’s respiratory health
Isabelle Romieu, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca, Mexico (slides, handout)

3:20      Role of gaseous pollutants on lung development and lung function: Why is this important?
Ira Tager (slides, handout)

3:50      Break

4:10      Prenatal and early life exposure to air pollution and development of asthma
Jouni Jaakkola, University of Birmingham (slides, handout)

4:40      Summary and gaps in knowledge
Ira Tager (slides 2.7 MB, handout)

            5:00      Discussion  

 5:30     Free Evening

 7:00–8:25         Breakfast

 8:30     Particulate Matter in a Multipollutant World

Chairs: Ross Anderson, St George’s Hospital Medical School and HEI Review Committee, and Mark Utell, University of Rochester Medical Center and Chair of the HEI Research Committee

This session will focus on two major areas of interest in understanding the putative health effects of particulate matter (PM). The first part of the session will describe how recent studies have provided new clues to the possible biological pathways involved in health effects associated with exposure to both short-term and longer-term exposure to PM. The second part of the session will address new thinking behind worldwide setting of standards. Representatives from agencies in the US, Europe, and Asia will discuss the general issues, as well as specific studies, that have influenced their decisionmaking processes.

 8:30     The evolution of views on the mechanism of particle effects
Arden Pope, Brigham Young University (slides, handout)

 9:00     Does linking toxicology and epidemiology help explain oxidative stress–driven particle effects?
Frank Kelly, King's College London (slides, handout)

 9:30     Subchronic exposure to ambient particles
Lung Chi Chen, New York University School of Medicine (slides, handout)

 10:00   Break

 10:20   Panel discussion on how research has been applied to setting PM standards
Leonora Rojas Bracho, Instituto Nacional de Ecología, Mexico City (slides, handout 2.9 MB);
John Bachmann, US Environmental Protection Agency (slides, handout);
Jürgen Schneider, Austrian Environmental Protection Agency (slides, handout)

 11:20   General discussion

Noon–1:25         Lunch

 1:30     Exposure to Traffic: Health Effects Research and Challenges

Chairs: Jonathan Samet, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and HEI Research Committee, and Sverre Vedal, University of Washington and HEI Review Committee

An expanding body of epidemiologic research suggests that traffic-related exposures may be associated with acute and chronic respiratory effects. This session will focus on the challenges in carrying out these studies and interpreting the results. Within this context, speakers will present approaches to measuring traffic-related air pollution, provide an overview of the epidemiologic literature, and discuss specific health studies that have used various metrics of traffic-related air pollution. The potential impact of these studies on policy decisions and approaches to reducing traffic-related effects will also be considered.

 1:30     Introduction and overview of the literature
Jonathan Samet (slides, handout)