Air pollution is consistently ranked as a major environmental concern among Australians. At the same time, asthma and other airways disease are Australia's most widespread chronic health problem.
The links between air quality and airways disease are not fully understood, and Ecology and Health has received funding from CRC Asthma to investigate the consequences of adverse air quality on respiratory health.
Our three primary areas of investigation are:
- exposure to indoor air pollutants
- respiratory health in urban areas
- regional drivers of airways disease
Indoor air
The Indoor Air program focuses on the potential adverse health effects associated with pollutants emitted from indoor sources, particularly heating sources such as unflued gas and wood heaters.These heating options have been linked to increased levels of indoor air pollutants and have been associated with respiratory symptoms in children and adults.
We are testing the hypothesis that unflued gas heaters cause asthma exacerbations in adults. Indoor air quality and lung function are tested to identify changes in indoor air pollution levels and the respiratory health outcomes of interest.
Future research will include a prospective study to investigate the impact of indoor air pollution on disease progression in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
For further information, contact Dr Peter Franklin.
Urban air
The urban air program is mainly concerned with a vehicle corridor study evaluating urban air pollutants, particularly from traffic and its relationship to the incidence of respiratory and cardiovascular disease. The project tests the hypothesis that proximity to major vehicle corridors
(a) increases community exposure to criteria air pollutants, particulates, and the principal air toxics
(b) is linked to an increased rate of asthma and COPD in urban environments
The project involves two main components.
The first component involves spatial epidemiological analysis, using GIS and retrospective Emergency Department and Hospital data. A multi-level model has been developed to determine the exposure-response relationships between air pollutants, road and land use classifications, residence distance from roads, and community health outcomes.
The second component involves a nested case/control study, using Emergency Department data and quantitative data collected through telephone surveys, which will be analysed to determine the relationship between proximity to vehicle corridors, community exposure to vehicle emissions, and associated rates of asthma and COPD.
For further information, contact Research Assistant Professor Annemarie De Vos.
Regional drivers
The Regional Drivers program investigates geochemical and biological differences in dusts and airborne material from different areas of regional Western Australia, together with frequencies in asthma hospitalisation. Our hypothesis is that the frequency of asthma and other airways disease varies with regional diversity in particulate characteristics, dispersion patterns and ambient concentrations.
There are two main components to our analysis.
The first component involves a spatial epidemiological analysis, using a Bayesian model to perform disease and clustering mapping for asthma hospitalisations in regional WA.
The second component uses environmental samples to analyse for aeroallergens, metal concentration and lung bioaccessibility of respirable material from different regions and different land uses.
For further information, contact Dr Karin Ljung.
School of Population Health
University information
CRICOS Code: 00126G
