School Notes: School of Public Health
March/April 2011

Model estimates traffic-related air pollution

Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health have developed an accurate, economical, and comparatively easy-to-use method for estimating traffic-related air pollution in Connecticut and beyond. Epidemiologists routinely measure air quality in and around residential areas to determine how pollution levels from automobiles and other sources affect the health of people and contribute to conditions such as childhood asthma. But existing methods have drawbacks that limit their effectiveness.

The exposure model, devised by the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric, and Environmental Epidemiology, avoids the need for more expensive monitoring efforts. It also relies on readily available public information—such as census numbers, land-use records, and traffic data—as the basis for a model that predicts residential nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels. These statistics and other land-use data, elevation readings, wind speed, and population density are all applied to a mathematical model.

Student presents HPV research to Connecticut’s public health community

Vaccinations for human papillomavirus are an important safeguard for women against cervical cancer. But wide and troubling disparities persists in who receives the potentially lifesaving vaccine. A recent analysis of women in New Haven County by a Yale School of Public Health student and others found inequities in vaccine uptake along racial, ethnic, and economic lines and recommended new strategies to reach women who do not receive the vaccination.

Niti Mehta, an MPH candidate involved in the study, represented the School of Public Health at the Connecticut Public Health Association’s annual meeting and presented the findings to some of the state’s top public health officials and practitioners. The meeting convenes health professionals from community health clinics and agencies, schools of public health, municipalities, and the state for a daylong conference.

Infant antibiotic use may increase risk of childhood asthma

Children who receive antibiotics within the first six months of life are at a significantly increased risk of developing asthma and allergy by 6 years of age, according to a Yale study. The YSPH study followed a large cohort of women and collected data throughout their pregnancies and from their children until their sixth birthday. The researchers found that infants exposed to antibiotics during their first six months of life were up to 52 percent more likely than their peers who did not receive antibiotics to develop childhood asthma and allergies.

While previous studies have also found that antibiotic use may increase the risk of asthma in children, those studies may have been biased because antibiotics are used to treat respiratory tract infections that could themselves be early symptoms of asthma. The Yale study sought to eliminate this bias and concluded that antibiotic use increased risk of childhood asthma even in children not having experienced respiratory tract infections and in children whose asthma is first diagnosed after 3 years of age.