Publications by authors named "Itai Kloog"

Air-pollution monitoring is sparse across most of the United States, so geostatistical models are important for reconstructing concentrations of fine particulate air pollution (PM) for use in health studies. We present XGBoost-IDW Synthesis (XIS), a daily high-resolution PM machine-learning model covering the contiguous US from 2003 through 2023. XIS uses aerosol optical depth from satellites and a parsimonious set of additional predictors to make predictions at arbitrary points, capturing near-roadway gradients and allowing the estimation of address-level exposures.

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Chronological age is not an accurate predictor of morbidity and mortality risk, as individuals' aging processes are diverse. Phenotypic age acceleration (PhenoAgeAccel) is a validated biological age measure incorporating chronological age and biomarkers from blood samples commonly used in clinical practice that can better reflect aging-related morbidity and mortality risk. The heterogeneity of age-related decline is not random, as environmental exposures can promote or impede healthy aging.

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The challenge of reconstructing air temperature for environmental applications is to accurately estimate past exposures even where monitoring is sparse. We present XGBoost-IDW Synthesis for air temperature (XIS-Temperature), a high-resolution machine-learning model for daily minimum, mean, and maximum air temperature, covering the contiguous US from 2003 through 2023. XIS uses remote sensing (land surface temperature and vegetation) along with a parsimonious set of additional predictors to make predictions at arbitrary points, allowing the estimation of address-level exposures.

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Purpose: The Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort has enrolled over 60,000 children to examine how early environmental factors (broadly defined) are associated with key child health outcomes. The ECHO Cohort may be well-positioned to contribute to our understanding of rural environments and contexts, which has implications for rural health disparities research. The present study examined the outcome of child obesity to not only illustrate the suitability of ECHO Cohort data for these purposes but also determine how various definitions of rural and urban populations impact the presentation of findings and their interpretation.

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Background & Aims: Scarce knowledge about the impact of metabolism-disrupting chemicals (MDCs) on steatotic liver disease limits opportunities for intervention. We evaluated pregnancy MDC-mixture associations with liver outcomes, and effect modification by folic acid (FA) supplementation in mother-child pairs.

Methods: We studied ∼200 mother-child pairs from the Mexican PROGRESS cohort, with 43 MDCs measured during pregnancy (estimated air pollutants, blood/urine metals or metalloids, urine high- and low-molecular-weight phthalate [HMWPs, LMWPs] and organophosphate-pesticide metabolites), and serum liver enzymes (ALT, AST) at ∼9 years post-parturition.

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Background: In 2019, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study attributed 0·98 million deaths to ambient air pollution in India based on potentially inappropriate exposure-response functions from countries with low air pollution levels. Instead, using data from India, we investigated long-term exposure to PM and all-cause mortality with a causal inference method.

Methods: We collected national counts of annual mortality from 2009 to 2019 from the Civil Registration System at the district level to calculate annual district-level mortality rate as our main outcome and obtained annual PM concentrations from a high-resolution spatiotemporal model.

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Introduction: India experiences high levels of air pollution as measured by fine particulate matter <2.5 μm (PM) across the country. With limited resources, it is imperative to identify the most impacted areas.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores how outdoor air pollution, specifically fine particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO), affects childhood diseases like asthma, rhinitis, and eczema, especially in rural areas where the effects are less understood.
  • It utilized data from the Pélagie mother-child cohort in Brittany, France, analyzing 1322 children at age 6 and 1118 at age 12 to assess the prevalence of these diseases and their coexistence (multimorbidity).
  • Results indicated a tendency for PM and NO to associate with the diseases, particularly in urban areas, highlighting the need for further research on the differing impacts of air pollution in urban versus rural environments.
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Background: Residential food environment influences dietary patterns, however the impact of individuals' perceived social identity on their antioxidant intake, an indicator of healthy dietary patterns, remains underexplored.

Objective: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data collected in a longitudinal cohort. In the study, we aimed to investigate the interactions between the food environment and two indicators of social identity, specifically a subjective ladder measure of socioeconomic status (SES) and the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) score, in relation to dietary antioxidant intake (DAI) among n = 512 Boston and NYC-resident pregnant women.

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Background: Childhood obesity is a major public health concern, and the global rate is rising. Rapid infant weight gain is a risk factor for later overweight. Studies have linked prenatal ambient temperature exposure to fetal growth, and preliminary evidence suggests postnatal exposure may be associated with infant weight gain.

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Background: Sperm quality has decreased over the last decades worldwide. It is affected, among others, by season and heat. This study aimed to address the association between ambient temperature and sperm quality by assessing its shape using flexible multivariate models and identifying distinct time-dynamic patterns of temperature change based on unsupervised analysis.

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Background: The carcinogenicity of air pollution and its impact on the risk of lung cancer is well known; however, there are still knowledge gaps and mixed results for other sites of cancer.

Methods: The current study aimed to evaluate the associations between ambient air pollution [fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxides (NOx)] and cancer incidence.

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Background: The evidence for acute effects of air pollution on mortality in India is scarce, despite the extreme concentrations of air pollution observed. This is the first multi-city study in India that examines the association between short-term exposure to PM and daily mortality using causal methods that highlight the importance of locally generated air pollution.

Methods: We applied a time-series analysis to ten cities in India between 2008 and 2019.

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Background And Aims: Scarce knowledge about the impact of metabolism-disrupting chemicals (MDCs) on liver injury limits opportunities for intervention. We evaluated pregnancy MDC-mixture associations with liver injury and effect modification by folic acid (FA) supplementation in mother-child pairs.

Methods: We studied ∼200 mother-child pairs from the Mexican PROGRESS cohort, with measured 43 MDCs during pregnancy (estimated air pollutants, blood/urine metals or metalloids, urine high- and low-molecular-weight phthalate [HMWPs, LMWPs] and organophosphate-pesticide [OP] metabolites), and serum liver enzymes (ALT, AST) at ∼9 years post-parturition.

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Understanding and managing the health effects of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO) requires high resolution spatiotemporal exposure maps. Here, we developed a multi-stage multi-resolution ensemble model that predicts daily NO concentration across continental France from 2005 to 2022. Innovations of this work include the computation of daily predictions at a 200 m resolution in large urban areas and the use of a spatio-temporal blocking procedure to avoid data leakage and ensure fair performance estimation.

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Background: Preeclampsia is a multi-system hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that is a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Prior studies disagree on the cause and even the presence of seasonal patterns in its incidence. Using unsuitable time windows for seasonal exposures can bias model results, potentially explaining these inconsistencies.

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Background: Pregnancy air pollution exposure (PAPE) has been linked to a wide range of adverse birth and childhood outcomes, but there is a paucity of data on its influence on the placental epigenome, which can regulate the programming of physiological functions and affect child development. This study aimed to investigate the association between prenatal air pollutant exposure concentrations and changes in placental DNA methylation patterns, and to explore the potential windows of susceptibility and sex-specific alterations.

Methods: This multi-site study used three prospective population-based mother-child cohorts: EDEN, PELAGIE, and SEPAGES, originating from four French geographical regions (Nancy, Poitiers, Brittany, and Grenoble).

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Article Synopsis
  • Ambient exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) is linked to increased health risks, raising the question of how PM sensitizes the immune response in children.
  • A study involving 277 children investigated the effects of neighborhood PM on inflammatory responses, revealing that higher PM levels correlate with stronger cytokine reactions, particularly from vehicle emissions and dust.
  • Longitudinal findings indicated that residential PM exposure decreased sensitivity to anti-inflammatory agents, but PM levels did not appear to affect biomarkers of low-grade inflammation.
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To improve our understanding of the health impacts of high and low temperatures, epidemiological studies require spatiotemporally resolved ambient temperature (Ta) surfaces. Exposure assessment over various European cities for multi-cohort studies requires high resolution and harmonized exposures over larger spatiotemporal extents. Our aim was to develop daily mean, minimum and maximum ambient temperature surfaces with a 1 × 1 km resolution for Europe for the 2003-2020 period.

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Article Synopsis
  • Evidence shows that living near green spaces can benefit mental health, but research on their impact on children's early mental health symptoms is limited.
  • The study aims to investigate how residential green space is associated with early internalizing (like anxiety and depression) and externalizing (like aggression and rule-breaking) symptoms in children.
  • It uses data from a cohort of US children born between 2007 and 2013, analyzing their mental health outcomes in relation to green space exposure measured through satellite data, while considering various socioeconomic and demographic factors.
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High-resolution assessment of historical levels is essential for assessing the health effects of ambient air pollution in the large Indian population. The diversity of geography, weather patterns, and progressive urbanization, combined with a sparse ground monitoring network makes it challenging to accurately capture the spatiotemporal patterns of ambient fine particulate matter (PM) pollution in India. We developed a model for daily average ambient PM between 2008 and 2020 based on monitoring data, meteorology, land use, satellite observations, and emissions inventories.

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Background: In contrast to fine particles, less is known of the inflammatory and coagulation impacts of coarse particulate matter (, particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ). Toxicological research suggests that these pathways might be important processes by which impacts health, but there are relatively few epidemiological studies due to a lack of a national monitoring network.

Objectives: We used new spatiotemporal exposure models to examine associations of both 1-y and 1-month average concentrations with markers of inflammation and coagulation.

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Prenatal fine particulate matter (PM) and maternal psychological functioning have been associated with child cognitive outcomes, though their independent and joint impacts on earlier behavioral outcomes remains less studied. We used data from 382 mother-child pairs from a prospective birth cohort in Mexico City. Temperament was measured at 24 months using the Carey Toddler Temperament Scale (TTS).

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Background: Fine particulate matter (PM) exposure has been linked to anxiety and depression in adults; however, there is limited research in the younger populations, in which symptoms often first arise.

Methods: We examined the association between early-life PM exposure and symptoms of anxiety and depression in a cohort of 8-11-year-olds in Mexico City. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Spanish versions of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and Children's Depression Inventory.

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Introduction: Neurotoxicity resulting from air pollution is of increasing concern. Considering exposure timing effects on neurodevelopmental impairments may be as important as the exposure dose. We used distributed lag regression to determine the sensitive windows of prenatal exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) on children's cognition in a birth cohort in Mexico.

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Synopsis of recent research by authors named "Itai Kloog"

  • Itai Kloog's recent research focuses on the intersection of environmental factors, such as air quality and temperature, with health outcomes during pregnancy and early childhood, exploring their implications for conditions like asthma, obesity, and cancer.
  • The studies emphasize the impact of outdoor air pollution on childhood health by investigating associations between prenatal exposures (e.g., fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide) and childhood diseases like asthma and eczema, as well as examining metabolic disruptors during pregnancy.
  • Kloog also employs advanced statistical methods to assess health risks associated with pollutants, such as multi-resolution models for predicting nitrogen dioxide concentrations and studies on placental DNA methylation related to air pollution exposure, revealing potential mechanisms affecting child development.

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