![[logo] US EPA](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20080918011621im_/http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Asthma Research
Quick Finder
- Accountability - Assessing Risk Management Decisions
- Asthma Research
- Biological (Mechanistic) Research
- Biomarkers for Cumulative Risk
- Emerging Technologies
- Identifying and Assessing Communities at Risk
- Life Stages Research
- Longitudinal Research
- Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Modeling
- Risk Assessment for Chemical Mixtures
- Source-to-Effect Modeling
The Issue | Science Objectives | Research Highlights | Impact and Outcome
The Issue
It is estimated that over 20 million Americans suffer from asthma. Although children appear to be the population most at risk, there is growing concern that new cases also are arising in adults, particularly elderly adults.
In Healthy People 2010, a strategy document prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, asthma was identified as a "serious and growing health problem" in need of action. In response to the public health concern about asthma, EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) developed a research program on asthma as outlined in its 2002 Asthma Research Strategy.
Science Objectives
ORD's Human Health Research Program focuses on the role of common air pollutants and bioaerosols in the onset and exacerbation of asthma in susceptible populations, the underlying biological mechanisms involved, and the development of improved risk management methods. The objectives of asthma research are to determine the diverse responsiveness of life stages to air pollution exposure, the different factors responsible for the differential responsiveness, and the predisposing factors for asthma.
Research Goals:
- Provide data that demonstrate the association between early life exposure to mobile source emissions and its role in induction of asthma in children and in the elderly that will be applied to risk assessment activities
- Improve understanding of the mechanisms underlying differential susceptibility to pollutants leading to an improved design of strategies to protect asthmatics from air pollutants and buttress the current standards for ambient air pollutants
- Provide data for the improved prediction of human health risk to air pollutants, identify potentially susceptible populations, and provide guidelines for exposures to classes of air toxics
- Demonstrate the impact of exposure to different types of diesel and molds on the development of allergic asthma
- Provide the scientific foundation and tools to improve the identification and quantification of molds leading to better guidance to parents of asthmatic children on mold types, their exposures, potential health effects, and relative priorities for mitigation strategies
Research Highlights
- The Detroit Children's Health Study is a major epidemiology study currently underway to provide data on the association between exposure to environmental agents and adverse health outcomes. The study will contribute to the understanding of whether long-term, early life exposures to mobile source emissions, particularly diesel exhaust particles, play a key role in the induction of allergic asthma in school children.
- Research is addressing the response of humans to air toxics (e.g., aldehyde) by developing a database that will support extrapolation between animal exposures and human health effects, establishing models for aldehydes, and determining susceptibility factors, including examination of age-related development of aldehyde detoxification enzymes.
- Models are being developed to study how in utero exposures to different kinds of diesel (e.g., organic-rich versus organic-poor) affect birth weight and the development of allergic asthma. This life-stage model later will be expanded to address similar issues related to molds and pesticides.
- Identification and quantification of molds hold great promise for mitigating childhood asthma. ORD research is developing innovative diagnostic tools that will be employed to design better prevention and intervention strategies to improve the health of asthmatic children. Findings to date suggest that specific molds are associated directly with water-damaged homes of asthmatic children; removal of these molds significantly improves asthma symptoms. Further research will be undertaken in collaboration with planned or ongoing epidemiology studies to corroborate these findings. This project also will address aspects of source-to-effect modeling of asthma by developing biomarkers for exposure of children to molds, assessing the relative potency of molds for assessment of cumulative risk, and determining the role of molds in the development of asthma in utero.
Impact and Outcomes
- Asthma research is having an impact on the ability to conduct risk assessments through the development of new methods, models, and data. The science is providing information for real-world issues facing the Agency.
- Data generated by ORD's research on asthma has contributed to criteria documents for ozone and particulate matter, the health assessment for diesel emissions, and the basis for the national ambient air quality standards for ozone.
- ORD research has facilitated the development of prevention and intervention approaches that have been accepted and implemented by numerous local health departments, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other public health organizations.
- ORD's research on asthma focuses on the roles that molds and other indoor biological materials play in the onset and exacerbation of asthma. This research has demonstrated that reducing mold exposure can improve the respiratory health of sensitive subpopulations, identified a biomarker that can predict the size of a asthmatic response in susceptible people, and developed protocols for government agencies to improve indoor air quality in Federal buildings and others.