Aircraft noise exposure and body mass index among female participants in two Nurses' Health Study prospective cohorts living around 90 airports in the United States.

Objective: Aircraft noise exposure is linked to cardiovascular disease risk. One understudied candidate pathway is obesity. This study investigates the association between aircraft noise and obesity among female participants in two prospective Nurses' Health Study (NHS and NHSII) cohorts.

Characterizing temporal trends in populations exposed to aircraft noise around U.S. airports: 1995-2015.

Background: Aircraft noise is a key concern for communities surrounding airports, with increasing evidence for health effects and inequitable distributions of exposure. However, there have been limited national-scale assessments of aircraft noise exposure over time and across noise metrics, limiting evaluation of population exposure patterns.

Objective: We evaluated national-scale temporal trends in aviation noise exposure by airport characteristics and across racial/ethnic populations in the U.

Associations between long-term aircraft noise exposure, cardiovascular disease, and mortality in US cohorts of female nurses.

Unlabelled: There is limited research examining aircraft noise and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The objective of this study was to investigate associations of aircraft noise with CVD among two US cohorts, the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and Nurses' Health Study II (NHSII).

Methods: Between 1994 and 2014, we followed 57,306 NHS and 60,058 NHSII participants surrounding 90 airports.

Associations between Aircraft Noise Exposure and Self-Reported Sleep Duration and Quality in the United States-Based Prospective Nurses' Health Study Cohort.

Background: Sleep disruption is linked with chronic disease, and aircraft noise can disrupt sleep. However, there are few investigations of aircraft noise and sleep in large cohorts.

Objectives: We examined associations between aircraft noise and self-reported sleep duration and quality in the Nurses' Health Study, a large prospective cohort.

Long-term aircraft noise exposure and risk of hypertension in postmenopausal women.

Background: Studies of the association between aircraft noise and hypertension are complicated by inadequate control for potential confounders and a lack of longitudinal assessments, and existing evidence is inconclusive.

Objectives: We evaluated the association between long-term aircraft noise exposure and risk of hypertension among post-menopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative Clinical Trials, an ongoing prospective U.S.

Sociodemographic Patterns of Exposure to Civil Aircraft Noise in the United States.

Background: Communities with lower socioeconomic status and higher prevalence of racial/ethnic minority populations are often more exposed to environmental pollutants. Although studies have shown associations between aircraft noise and property values and various health outcomes, little is known about how aircraft noise exposures are sociodemographically patterned.

Objective: Our aim was to describe characteristics of populations exposed to aviation noise by race/ethnicity, education, and income in the United States.

Metals dust in workers' homes and potential for take home in the Greater Boston area: Pilot study.

Toxic metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, are present at construction worksites. From work, metals can easily, unintentionally be transported to homes of workers, contaminating living spaces and affecting others including children, known as "take-home exposure." Focus has been given to minimizing lead take-home exposure but less is known about other metals.

Long-term aircraft noise exposure and risk of hypertension in the Nurses' Health Studies.

Background: Aircraft noise can affect populations living near airports. Chronic exposure to aircraft noise has been associated with cardiovascular disease, including hypertension. However, previous studies have been limited in their ability to characterize noise exposures over time and to adequately control for confounders.

The association of cadmium and lead exposures with red cell distribution width.

Elevated red blood cell distribution width (RDW), traditionally an indicator of anemia, has now been recognized as a risk marker for cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality. Experimental and acute exposure studies suggest that cadmium and lead individually affect red blood cell production; however, associations between environmental exposures and RDW have not been explored. We evaluated relationships of environmental cadmium and lead exposures to RDW.

Urinary Isoflavones Levels in Relation to Serum Thyroid Hormone Concentrations in Female and Male Adults in the U.S. General Population.

Isoflavones are phytoestrogens found in plant-based foods and nutritional supplements. Experimental studies show a positive association between isoflavones and hypothyroidism, but epidemiological findings are conflicting. We used multivariable linear regression to examine the association between urinary isoflavone concentrations and serum thyroid hormone concentrations in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2007-2010).

Epidemiologically-informed cumulative risk hypertension models simulating the impact of changes in metal, organochlorine, and non-chemical exposures in an environmental justice community.

Blood pressure is a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease, influenced by chemical and non-chemical stressors. Exposure reduction strategies can potentially improve public health, but there are analytical challenges in developing quantitative models of health benefits, including the need for detailed multi-stressor exposure models, corresponding health evidence, and methods to simulate changes in exposure and resultant health benefits. These challenges are pronounced in low-income urban communities, where residents are often simultaneously exposed to numerous chemical and non-chemical stressors.

Aviation Noise and Cardiovascular Health in the United States: a Review of the Evidence and Recommendations for Research Direction.

Purpose Of The Review: In the USA, there is mounting pressure on aviation operators and regulators to address concerns about community impacts of aircraft noise given increasing evidence of adverse health impacts, continuing community complaints, availability of cost-effective programs to reduce exposures to aircraft noise, and more stringent international policies. In the USA, regulation of civil aviation noise is the responsibility of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which requires a "significant body of scientific support," particularly applicable to the USA, to inform health-based policy and regulatory decisions. However, there have been very few studies investigating the relationship between noise and health in the USA and limited studies across the globe characterizing the effects of aviation noise specifically on cardiovascular health.

Self-rated health and its association with perceived environmental hazards, the social environment, and cultural stressors in an environmental justice population.

Background: Communities with large minority populations often are located near sources of pollution and have higher crime rates, which may work in combination with other factors to influence health. Poor self-rated health is related to chronic health conditions and premature mortality, with minority populations most likely to report poor health. To address how both resident perception of neighborhood environments and chronic health conditions individually and collectively influence health, we examined self-rated health and its association with multiple types of perceived environmental hazards in a majority-Hispanic urban population.

Association of modeled long-term personal exposure to ultrafine particles with inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers.

Background: Long-term exposure to fine particulate matter has been linked to cardiovascular disease and systemic inflammatory responses; however, evidence is limited regarding the effects of long-term exposure to ultrafine particulate matter (UFP, <100nm). We used a cross-sectional study design to examine the association of long-term exposure to near-highway UFP with measures of systemic inflammation and coagulation.

Methods: We analyzed blood samples from 408 individuals aged 40-91years living in three near-highway and three urban background areas in and near Boston, Massachusetts.

A Walk in the Park: The Influence of Urban Parks and Community Violence on Physical Activity in Chelsea, MA.

Proximity to a park does not necessarily imply access or use, and the social environment may positively or negatively influence the positive intentions of the built environment. To investigate parks, park use and physical activity, and their associations with exposure to community violence, we interviewed residents (n = 354) of a densely populated urban community. Our findings indicate that proximity to any park is not associated with physical activity.

Combined impact of lead, cadmium, polychlorinated biphenyls and non-chemical risk factors on blood pressure in NHANES.

High blood pressure is associated with exposure to multiple chemical and non-chemical risk factors, but epidemiological analyses to date have not assessed the combined effects of both chemical and non-chemical stressors on human populations in the context of cumulative risk assessment. We developed a novel modeling approach to evaluate the combined impact of lead, cadmium, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and multiple non-chemical risk factors on four blood pressure measures using data for adults aged ≥ 20 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2008). We developed predictive models for chemical and other stressors.

Meta-Analytic Approaches for Multistressor Dose-Response Function Development: Strengths, Limitations, and Case Studies.

For many policy analyses, including but not limited to cumulative risk assessments, it is important to characterize the individual and joint health effects of multiple stressors. With an increasing focus on psychosocial and other nonchemical stressors, this often includes epidemiological meta-analysis. Meta-analysis has limitations if epidemiological studies do not include all of the stressors of interest or do not provide multivariable outputs in a format necessary for risk assessment.

Pessimistic orientation in relation to telomere length in older men: the VA normative aging study.

Background: Recent research suggests pessimistic orientation is associated with shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL). However, this is the first study to look not only at effects of pessimistic orientation on average LTL at multiple time points, but also at effects on the rate of change in LTL over time.

Methods: Participants were older men from the VA Normative Aging Study (n=490).

Community-wide health risk assessment using geographically resolved demographic data: a synthetic population approach.

Background: Evaluating environmental health risks in communities requires models characterizing geographic and demographic patterns of exposure to multiple stressors. These exposure models can be constructed from multivariable regression analyses using individual-level predictors (microdata), but these microdata are not typically available with sufficient geographic resolution for community risk analyses given privacy concerns.

Methods: We developed synthetic geographically-resolved microdata for a low-income community (New Bedford, Massachusetts) facing multiple environmental stressors.

Residential exposure to aircraft noise and hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases: multi-airport retrospective study.

Objective: To investigate whether exposure to aircraft noise increases the risk of hospitalization for cardiovascular diseases in older people (≥ 65 years) residing near airports.

Design: Multi-airport retrospective study of approximately 6 million older people residing near airports in the United States. We superimposed contours of aircraft noise levels (in decibels, dB) for 89 airports for 2009 provided by the US Federal Aviation Administration on census block resolution population data to construct two exposure metrics applicable to zip code resolution health insurance data: population weighted noise within each zip code, and 90th centile of noise among populated census blocks within each zip code.

Prenatal environmental factors influencing IgE levels, atopy and early asthma.

Purpose Of Review: There is increasing evidence that the prenatal window represents a critical period in which the developing immune system may be primed toward an allergic phenotype. Studies have investigated the role of a number of maternal environmental exposures on subsequent allergic disorders in the offspring. We summarize findings from recent studies on prenatal environmental factors influencing IgE levels, atopy, and early asthma.

Lead concentrations in relation to multiple biomarkers of cardiovascular disease: the Normative Aging Study.

Background: Lead exposure has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) in animal and human studies. However, the mechanisms of action have not been fully elucidated. We therefore examined the relationship between lead and multiple biomarkers of CVD.

Childhood and adult socioeconomic position, cumulative lead levels, and pessimism in later life: the VA Normative Aging Study.

Pessimism, a general tendency toward negative expectancies, is a risk factor for depression and also heart disease, stroke, and reduced cancer survival. There is evidence that individuals with higher lead exposure have poorer health. However, low socioeconomic status (SES) is linked with higher lead levels and greater pessimism, and it is unclear whether lead influences psychological functioning independently of other social factors.