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Research Reports

HEI’s mission is to provide credible science to support environmental regulations and other policy decisions. The results of each HEI-funded project undergo peer-review by outside scientists and the Health Review Committee. The HEI Research Reports contain the Investigator’s Report and the Review Committee’s evaluation of the study, summarized in a Commentary or short Critique.

ISSN 1041-5505 (print)        ISSN 2688-6855 (online) 

Modeling of Multipollutant Profiles and Spatially Varying Health Effects with Applications to Indicators of Adverse Birth Outcomes

Research Report 183, Part 3
John Molitor
Eric Coker
Michael Jerrett
Beate Ritz
Arthur Li
2016
Topics: 
Air Pollution
Multipollutant Mixtures
Innovation
Statistical Methods

This report is Part 3 of HEI Research Report 183, Development of Statistical Methods for Multipollutant Research. It describes a study to develop and apply statistical methods to analyze the effects of multipollutant exposures on health, expanding beyond the two-pollutant approaches used in many studies to date. HEI funded three innovative studies in recent years to improve the tools for analyzing complex multipollutant exposures. In this last report from these studies, John Molitor and colleagues describe a Bayesian framework to identify spatial clusters of air pollution exposures — and other covariates such as socioeconomic status — and estimated pregnancy outcomes associated with those clusters, using a data set for Los Angeles county. 

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Analysis of Personal and Home Characteristics Associated with the Elemental Composition of PM2.5 in Indoor, Outdoor, and Personal Air in the RIOPA Study

Research Report 185
Patrick H Ryan
Cole Brokamp
Zhi-Hua (Tina) Fan
MB Rao
2015
Topics: 
Air Pollution
Particulate Matter

This report describes a study by Dr. Patrick Ryan at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He used the RIOPA data – which HEI has made available to all scientists on the Web to further explore relationships among the elemental composition of indoor, outdoor, and personal PM2.5 samples collected at participant’s homes. His analyses included traditional and novel approaches to comparing the samples.

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Development of Statistical Methods for Multipollutant Research

Research Report 183, Parts 1 and 2
Brent A Coull
et al.
Eun Sug Park
et al.
2015
Topics: 
Air Pollution
Multipollutant Mixtures
Innovation
Statistical Methods

This report contains two studies, by Drs. Brent A Coull and Eun Sug Park and their colleagues, and a Commentary discussing each study individually, as well as an Integrative Discussion of the two. 
Part 1. Statistical Learning Methods for the Effects of Multiple Air Pollution Constituents. Brent A. Coull et al.
Part 2. Development of Enhanced Statistical Methods for Assessing Health Effects Associated with an Unknown Number of Major Sources of Multiple Air Pollutants. Eun Sug Park et al. 

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Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study (ACES): Lifetime Cancer and Non-Cancer Assessment in Rats Exposed to New-Technology Diesel Exhaust

Research Report 184
Jacob D McDonald
Jeffrey C Bemis
Lance M Hallberg
Daniel J Conklin
2015
Topics: 
Air Pollution
Diesel Exhaust
Emerging Technologies
Engines & Aftertreatment

This report describes four studies conducted as a single phase (Phase 3B) of HEI's Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study (ACES) program, which was designed to evaluate the emissions and health changes resulting from substantially improved diesel engines required under the U.S. EPA 2007–2010 Heavy Duty Diesel Rule. These studies were conducted by Drs. Jacob D. McDonald of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jeffrey C. Bemis of Litron Laboratories, Rochester, New York, Lance M. Hallberg of the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, and Daniel J. Conklin, University of Louisville, Kentucky.

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