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Jeffrey L. Lange,¹ David A. Schwartz,² Bradley N. Doebbeling,^2,3 Jack M. Heller,⁴ and Peter S. Thorne¹

¹Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, and ²Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA; ³Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA and Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Iowa City, Iowa, USA; ⁴U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion & Preventive Medicine, Deployment Environmental Surveillance Program, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA

Abstract

Military personnel deployed to the Persian Gulf War have reported a variety of symptoms attributed to their exposures. We examined relationships between symptoms of respiratory illness present 5 years after the war and both self-reported and modeled exposures to oil-fire smoke that occurred during deployment. Exposure and symptom information was obtained by structured telephone interview in a population-based sample of 1,560 veterans who served in the Gulf War. Modeled exposures were exhaustively developed using a geographic information system to integrate spatial and temporal records of smoke concentrations with troop movements ascertained from global positioning systems records. For the oil-fire period, there were 600,000 modeled data points with solar absorbance used to represent smoke concentrations to a 15-km resolution. Outcomes included respiratory symptoms (asthma, bronchitis) and control outcomes (major depression, injury) . Approximately 94% of the study cohort were still in the gulf theater during the time of the oil-well fires, and 21% remained there more than 100 days during the fires. There was modest correlation between self-reported and modeled exposures (r = 0.48, p < 0.05) . Odds ratios for asthma, bronchitis, and major depression increased with increasing self-reported exposure. In contrast, there was no association between the modeled exposure and any of the outcomes. These findings do not support speculation that exposures to oil-fire smoke caused respiratory symptoms among veterans. Key words: air pollution, asthma, chronic bronchitis, exposure modeling, geographical information systems, oil-well fires, Persian Gulf War. Environ Health Perspect 110:1141-1146 (2002) . [Online 25 September 2002]

http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/110p1141-1146lange/ abstract.html

Address correspondence P.S. Thorne, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, 100 Oakdale Campus, 176 IREH, Iowa City, IA 52242-5000 USA. Telephone: (319) 335-4216. Fax: (319) 335-4006. E-mail: peter-thorne@uiowa.edu

For their contributions we thank J. Merchant, J. Torner, R. Woolson, W. Clarke, and M. Voelker, at the University of Iowa ; J. Kirpatrick, W. Wortman, C. Weir, J. Howard, and K. Campbell at USACHPPM ; and D. Barrett at the CDC.

J.L. Lange is currently at the Army Medical Surveillance Activity, Washington, DC. D.A. Schwartz is currently at the Department of Internal Medicine, Duke University, Durham, NC. This study was supported by a cooperative agreement (U50/CCU711513) between the CDC National Center for Environmental Health and the Iowa Department of Public Health. P.S. Thorne received additional support from NIH/NIEHS P30 ES05605.

Received 12 October 2001 ; accepted 28 March 2002.