Children's Exposures/Health Effects/Diesel Exhaust

NCT00527345 | Completed

• 2 other identifiers: 12657-CP-001R01ES012657
• Study Type: observational
• Target: 450
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The contribution of diesel exhaust (DE) to health, especially children's health, is of tremendous public health interest. DE has been associated with worsening asthma and allergies, among other important health effects. Reducing DE exposures has become a major regulatory initiative, and federal, state, and local jurisdictions are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in retrofitting diesel engines in school buses and other changes to reach this goal. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent regulations require all on-road diesel vehicles to change to low emission engines and ultra-low-sulfur fuels by 2007 (US EPA '00). In spring 2003, the U.S. EPA announced a nationwide voluntary school bus retrofit initiative. In July 2003, the Washington Legislature enacted a statewide "Diesel Solutions" program that provides 25 million dollars by 2008 to retrofit school diesel buses with cleaner burning engines and fuels, making it one of the largest and most active voluntary school bus retrofit program in the country. If risk assessment estimates are accurate, these changes will have a large public health impact, especially on children who ride school buses daily. However, no studies to-date have rigorously examined school children's exposure to diesel exhaust (DE) and its health effects, nor such a significant change in vehicular pollution control. We propose to seize this opportunity of a large natural experiment taking place in the Puget Sound area and conduct a study to assess health effects from diesel bus exhaust before and after the retrofit of diesel bus fleets between 2005 and 2007. The specific aims of the study are to:

1. 1.Determine whether asthmatic children changing to retrofitted buses with cleaner fuels and engines have a reduction in sub-clinical and clinical asthma severity.
2. 2.Determine if increased levels of DE exposure lead to an increase in acute clinical and sub-clinical features of asthma in children.
3. 3.Quantify the levels and changes in particle and toxic gas exposures to DE in 3 groups of children commuting to school by retrofitted buses or private cars, old diesel buses to be retrofitted later, and old diesel buses through the study.

Conditions

Asthma; Airway Inflammation

Keywords

Asthma; Diesel exhaust

Study Arms (3)

1

children riding retrofitted school buses or private cars

2

children riding old buses who will change to retrofitted buses during the first or second year of the study

3

children who ride old diesel buses through the study

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Years - 11 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• ages 6-11 and attending 1st to 5th grades at schools in one of our target districts; approximately 75% subjects will commute by bus daily, 25% commute by car/walking;
• with or without physician-diagnosed asthma
• If with physician-diagnosed asthma:
• year history, including episodic symptoms of wheezing, cough, and dyspnea;
• mild intermittent (with at least one episode a week requiring inhaler), mild persistent, or moderate persistent severity of asthma by NAEPP Criteria (NHLBI '91);

You may not qualify if:

• history of smoking by the subject or by a person in the subject's home
• asthma hospitalizations within 4 weeks of the start of each study year
• other chronic diseases such as diabetes, congenital heart disease, chronic renal disease
• new pets in the home

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS): lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Washington Dept. Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Seattle, Washington, 98195, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Asthma

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Bronchial Diseases; Respiratory Tract Diseases; Lung Diseases, Obstructive; Lung Diseases; Respiratory Hypersensitivity; Hypersensitivity, Immediate; Hypersensitivity; Immune System Diseases

Study Officials

• L.-J. Sally Liu, Sc.D.

  University of Washington

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: observational
• Time Perspective: PROSPECTIVE
• Sponsor Type: NIH

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 6, 2007
• First Posted: September 10, 2007
• Study Start: March 1, 2005
• Primary Completion: July 1, 2009
• Study Completion: July 1, 2009
• Last Updated: April 14, 2015

Record last verified: 2015-04

Locations

US (1)