Assessing the National Health, Education, and Air Quality Benefits of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's School Bus Rebate Program: A Randomized Controlled Trial Design.

Introduction: Approximately 25 million children ride buses to school in the United States. While school buses remain the safest school transport from a traffic accident perspective, older buses can expose students to high levels of diesel exhaust. These exposures can adversely affect health, which might cause missed school days and reduced learning.

School Bus Rebate Program and Student Educational Performance Test Scores.

Importance: Students who ride older school buses are often exposed to high levels of exhaust during their commutes, which may adversely affect health and school attendance. As a result, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded millions of dollars to school districts to replace older, highly polluting school buses with newer, cleaner buses.

Objective: To leverage the EPA's randomized allocation of funding under the 2012-2016 School Bus Rebate Programs to estimate the association between replacing old, highly polluting buses and changes in district-average standardized test scores.

Coarse Particulate Matter and Markers of Inflammation and Coagulation in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) Population: A Repeat Measures Analysis.

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.

Representativeness of the US EPA PM monitoring site locations to the US population: implications for air pollution prediction modeling.

Air pollution prediction modeling establishes relationships between measurements and geographical and meteorological characteristics to infer concentrations at locations without measurements. Since air pollution monitors are limited in number, predictions may be generated for locations different than those used to train the model. The epidemiologic impacts of this potential mismatch hinge on whether the population resides in areas well-represented by monitoring sites.

Exposure to Air Pollution in Relation to Risk of Dementia and Related Outcomes: An Updated Systematic Review of the Epidemiological Literature.

Background: Dementia is a devastating neurologic condition that is common in older adults. We previously reviewed the epidemiological evidence examining the hypothesis that long-term exposure to air pollution affects dementia risk. Since then, the evidence base has expanded rapidly.

Exposure to Primary Air Pollutants Generated by Highway Traffic and Daily Mortality Risk in Near-Road Communities: A Case-Crossover Study.

Most epidemiologic studies fail to capture the impact of spatiotemporal fluctuations in traffic on exposure to traffic-related air pollutants in the near-road population. Using a case-crossover design and the Research LINE source (R-LINE) dispersion model with spatiotemporally resolved highway traffic data, we quantified associations between primary pollutants generated by highway traffic-particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.5 μm (PM2.

Traffic Congestion as a Risk Factor for Mortality in Near-Road Communities: A Case-Crossover Study.

Existing epidemiologic research on traffic largely neglects localized fluctuations. We leveraged finely resolved congestion data to investigate short-term associations with mortality in communities near roadways. We identified all nonaccidental, cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory deaths (2009-2013) within 1 km of a highway in the Puget Sound region of Washington State.

Elimination of rabies from red foxes in eastern Ontario.

The province of Ontario (Canada) reported more laboratory confirmed rabid animals than any other state or province in Canada or the USA from 1958-91, with the exception of 1960-62. More than 95% of those cases occurred in the southern 10% of Ontario (approximately 100,000 km2), the region with the highest human population density and greatest agricultural activity. Rabies posed an expensive threat to human health and significant costs to the agricultural economy.

Tactics for the control of wildlife rabies in Ontario (Canada).

Two different tactics are currently being utilized to control rabies in foxes, skunks and raccoons in Ontario, Canada. The first tactic, which involves live-capturing with cage-traps and vaccinating by intramuscular injection, was successful in immunizing 54%-72% of the skunk and raccoon populations in a 60 km2 area of Toronto, Ontario. This area has been free of rabies for two-and-a-half years.

Wild carnivore acceptance of baits for delivery of liquid rabies vaccine.

A series of experiments are described on the acceptance, by red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and other species, of two types of vaccine-baits intended to deliver liquid rabies vaccine. The baits consisted of a cube of sponge coated in a mixture of tallow and wax, or a plastic blister-pack embedded in tallow. All baits contained tetracycline as a biological marking agent: examination of thin sections of carnivore canines under an ultraviolet microscope revealed a fluorescent line of tetracycline if an individual had eaten baits.