Patricia F. Coogan, ScD, an associate professor of epidemiology at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center (SEC), recently was awarded funding for two grants from the National Institutes of Health. The first is a five-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences that will study air pollution and risk of incident hypertension and diabetes in African American women. The second award is for a three-year study on the psychosocial factors and the risk of incident asthma in African American women, funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Using data from the SEC's Black Women's Health Study (BWHS), Coogan and her colleagues will estimate long-term participant exposure to traffic-related pollutions as indicated by PM2.5 and the nitrogen oxides (markers of traffic-related pollution). The study will be the first investigation of the effect of air pollution on incidence of hypertension, the first large-scale investigation of its effect on diabetes incidence, and the first study of air pollution effects specifically in African American women.
According to Coogan the hypotheses are of critical public health importance given the high and growing prevalence of hypertension and diabetes in the U.S., the disparity between incidence rates among African American and white women, and the ubiquity of exposure to air pollution. "Positive findings will inform public policy on air quality regulation, provide insight into a novel pathway whereby air pollution causes cardiovascular events, and illuminate causes of racial disparities in hypertension and diabetes incidence," said Coogan.