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The Health Effects Institute


Ongoing Research

The HEI research program has addressed many important questions about the health effects of a variety of pollutants over the past two decades. These include carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides, which are regulated in the US by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In addition, many air toxics and fuel additives have been studied, including methanol, diesel exhaust and associated compounds, benzene, 1,3-butadiene, aldehydes, and oxygenates added to gasoline. HEI’s current areas of interest are described in the HEI Strategic Plan for the Health Effects of Air Pollution 2010-2015 . This plan emphasizes the "air pollution mixture" with a focus on exposure, epidemiology and toxicology research; evaluating actions to improve air quality (accountability); and emerging technologies and fuels. The choices of which scientific questions to investigate have been made after considering regulatory needs and uncertainties about health effects, and after consultation with sponsors and the scientific community.

HEI has funded theoretical, in vitro, animal, controlled human exposure, and epidemiologic studies. Because HEI’s ultimate goal is to provide data that can be used in regulatory decisions or to provide better information for risk assessment, human studies and studies to improve extrapolation from animals to humans are an important part of HEI’s program. Sometimes the connection between HEI studies and these decisions is direct, but at other times new methods must be developed or biological mechanisms must be understood before studies of human health effects can be launched. Thus, HEI’s research program is comprised of a variety of studies, which in either the near or long term are important for obtaining better information on the human risks of exposure to air pollutants.

Ongoing Studies
Studies are listed by category, and include the primary investigator, the investigator's affiliation, and the working title of the study. Those studies that have been completed and are currently in the review stage are marked with an asterisk (*). Those studies in press are marked with a dagger (†).

Accountability Particulate Matter and Air Pollution Mixtures:
Air Toxics    Epidemiology & Statistics
Diesel Exhaust    Public Health and Air Pollution in Asia
   Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study    Experimental
     Exposure assessment

ACCOUNTABILITY (* = in review, = in press)
Click here to read more about HEI's Accountability research program.

*Douglas Dockery, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
    Effect of air pollution control on mortality and hospital admissions in Ireland

Frank Kelly, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
    Congestion Charging Scheme in London: assessing its impact on air quality and health

Frank Kelly, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
    The London Low-Emission Zone baseline study

*Richard Morgenstern, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC
    Accountability assessment of Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990

Curtis Noonan, University of Montana, Missoula, MT
    Assessing the impact on air quality and children’s health of actions taken to reduce
    PM2.5 levels from woodstoves

*Chit Ming Wong, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
     Impact of the 1990 Hong Kong legislation for restriction on sulfur content in fuel

Junfeng (Jim) Zhang, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ
    Molecular and physiological responses to drastic changes in PM concentration and composition


AIR TOXICS (* = in review, = in press)                              Back to top                 
Click here to read Research on Air Toxics (Program Summary May 1999)
Click here to read Research on Benzene and 1,3-Butadiene (Program Summary March 1999)

Multiple Air Toxics

Eric Fujita, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV
    Assessing exposure to air toxics

Paul Lioy, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Piscataway, NJ
    Assessing personal exposure to air toxics in Camden, New Jersey

*Thomas Smith, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
   
Air toxics hot spots in industrial parks and traffic

John Spengler, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
   
Air Toxics exposure from vehicular emissions at a U.S. border crossing


DIESEL EXHAUST (* = in review, = in press)                                               Back to top  
Click here
to read Research on Diesel Exhaust and Other Particles (Program Summary October 2003)

*Richard Effros, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Downey, CA
   
Exacerbation of allergic inflammation in the lower respiratory tract by diesel exhaust

Debra Laskin, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ
   
Role of TNF-alpha in diesel exhaust-induced pulmonary injury in elderly mice

*Simon Wong, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
   
The molecular effects of diesel exhaust particulates on respiratory neutral endopeptidase

Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study (ACES)

Joe Mauderly, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM
   
Development of a diesel exhaust exposure facility and conduct of a chronic inhalation bioassay
    in rats and a 90-day study in mice

Jeffrey Bemis, Litron Laboratories, Rochester, NY
   
Genotoxicity of inhaled diesel exhaust: examination of rodent blood for micronucleus formation

Daniel Conklin, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
    Effects of diesel emissions on vascular inflammation and thrombosis

Lance Hallberg, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX
    Assessment of the genotoxicity of diesel exhaust from improved diesel engines

Qinghua Sun, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
    Diesel exhaust exposure and cardiovascular dysfunction: ROS mechanism

John Veranth, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
    Lung cell gene transcription responses to diesel exhaust


PARTICULATE MATTER AND AIR POLLUTION MIXTURES (* = in review, = in press)
Click here to read Research on Particulate Matter (Program Summary May 1999)
Click here to read Research on Diesel Exhaust and Other Particles (Program Summary October 2003)

Epidemiology & Statistics                                                                          Back to top  

*Michelle Bell, Yale University, New Haven, CT
    Assessment of the mortality effects of particulate matter characteristics
    Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2004

Brent Coull, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
    Statistical learning methods for the effects of multiple air pollution constituents

Morton Lippmann, New York University, Tuxedo, NY
    Characteristics of PM associated with health effects

Eun Sug Park, Texas A& M University, College Station, TX
    Development of enhanced statistical methods for assessing health effects associated
    with an unknown number of major sources of multiple air pollutants

Jamie Robins, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
    New statistical approaches to semi-parametric regression with application to air
    pollution research

*Isabelle Romieu, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México
    Multi-city study of air pollution and health effects in Latin America

Sverre Vedal, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
   
Integrated epidemiologic and toxicologic cardiovascular studies to identify toxic
    components and sources of fine PM

Public Health and Air Pollution in Asia (PAPA)                      Back to top 
Click here for more information on HEI's International research program.

Kalpana Balakrishnan, Sri Ramachandra Medical College & Research Institute, Chennai, India
    Developing Exposure-response Functions for Air Pollutants from Time-series Analyses –
    A Pilot Exercise in Chennai, India

*HEI Collaborative Working Group on Air Pollution, Poverty, and Public Health in Ho Chi Minh City
    The effects of short-term exposure on hospital admissions for acute lower respiratory infections
    in young children of Ho Chi Minh City

HEI Collaborative Working Group on Air Pollution, Poverty, and Public Health in Ho Chi Minh City
    The relationship between personal and ambient exposures in Ho Chi Minh City

Haidong Kan, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
    A Time-series Study of Ambient Air Pollution and Daily Mortality in Shanghai, China

Zhengmin Qian, Pennsylvania State University, College Park, USA
    Ambient Air Pollution and Daily Mortality in Wuhan

Uma Rajarathnam, The Energy and Resources Institute, Delhi, India
    Time-series Study on Air Pollution and Mortality in Delhi, India

 Nuntavarn Vichit-Vadakan, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
    Estimating the Mortality Effects of Air Pollution in Bangkok, Thailand

Chit-Ming Wong, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
    Interaction Between Air Pollution and Respiratory Viruses: Time-series Studies
    for Daily Mortality and Hospital Admission

Chit-Ming Wong, on behalf of PAPA team
    Public Health and Air Pollution in Asia (PAPA): A multi-city study for short-term effects
    of air pollution on mortality

Experimental                                                                                   Back to top  

*Timothy Nurkiewicz, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
    Pulmonary particulate matter exposure and systemic microvascular function.

    Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2005

Marc Williams, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
    Determination of the effects of ambient particulate matter on toll-like receptor signaling
    and function in human dendritic cells - Pilot study

Qunwei Zhang, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
    Activation of endothelial cells and gene expression in lungs following exposure to ultrafine particles
   Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2006

Exposure Assessment                                                                    Back to top  

Marc Baum, Oak Crest Institute of Science, Pasadena, CA
    Significance of highly toxic secondary emissions from on-road vehicles

Murray Johnston, University of Delaware, Newark, DE
   
Selective detection and characterization of nanoparticles from motor vehicles

Jonathan Levy, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
    Using geographic information systems to evaluate heterogeneity in indoor and outdoor
    concentrations of particle constituents. 
Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2005

*Christopher Paciorek, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
   
Integrating monitoring and satellite data to retrospectively estimate monthly PM2.5 concentrations
   
in the eastern United States. Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2006

James Schauer, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
    Source apportionment and speciation of particulate matter for exposure and 
    health studies.
Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2002

Charles Stanier, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
    Development and application of a personal exposure screening model for size-resolved
    urban aerosols.
Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2007

Yifang Zhu, Texas A&M University, Kingsville, TX
    Assessing children's exposure to ultrafine particles from vehicular emissions.

    Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award 2007

Back to top 

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Last updated July 9, 2010