The Interaction of Social Factors With Air Pollution

Over the past decades, air quality in the U.S. has improved significantly. Even so, millions of people in the U.S. still live in counties that do not meet air quality standards for one or more pollutants. Ozone is a major component of photochemical smog and is one of the most thoroughly studied gaseous pollutants. Controlled human exposure studies have been critical in demonstrating that it can cause airway inflammation 1-3, including increases in neutrophil infiltration into the lung and the production of pro-inflammatory mediators 4,5[, and ultimately decrements in lung function [reviewed in 6]. More recent studies have shown that ozone can also increase vascular inflammation, as well as alter autonomic nervous system control of heart rate and cardiac repolarization 7. Numerous epidemiological studies have also demonstrated an association between acute and chronic exposure to ambient levels of ozone and various health effects most notably asthma 6. These studies have also highlighted a need to incorporate social and nonchemical factors into risk assessments 8. Similarly, social factors such as psychological stress are now regarded as important contributors to asthma outcomes 9,10. This protocol is aimed at investigating how stress impacts health responses to air pollutants. Since psychosocial stress-related susceptibility has been proposed to explain social disparities, this will help us understand which populations and individuals are at increased risk from air pollution.

This protocol is designed to determine whether nonchemical stressors exacerbate ozone effects. In particular we will focus on elevated psychosocial stress as it has been shown to contribute to several adverse health outcomes, most notably, to cardiovascular disease. The physiological mechanism by which psychosocial stress leads to health effects is due, at least in part, to elevated circulating glucocorticoids, or stress hormones, which are regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA). In the last 30 years the concept of allostasis has evolved. Allostasis is the process whereby an organism adapts to the demands of the environment. An allostatic load model applies this concept to chronic stress11. In this model the perception of threat over long time intervals (perceived stress) can cause over-activation of the HPA-axis resulting in changes in physiological systems as chemical imbalances in autonomic nervous system, central nervous system, neuroendocrine, and immune system activity. Factors such as genetics, behavior, life events and diet can impact this model. To our knowledge no clinical study has investigated the link between air pollution effects on cardiovascular disease and psychosocial stress. However, several studies have now shown an association between stress and respiratory outcomes to air pollution. Claugherty and colleagues (2007) found an association between traffic-related air pollution and asthma solely among children exposed to violence 12. Shankardass and colleagues demonstrated that children from stressful households are more susceptible to the effects of traffic-related pollution on the development of asthma 13. In that study, stress was evaluated using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) developed by Dr. Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University. This is the most widely used psychological instrument for measuring the perception of stress and has been validated in multiple studies. We will use this scale to evaluate the degree to which subjects appraise situations in their life as stressful. Heart rate variability (HRV) is considered to be a reliable biomarker of stress. Chronic stress has been shown to be associated with decreases in HRV 14. Since acute ozone exposure can also cause changes in HRV, we have chosen HRV as our primary endpoint. We hypothesize that the imbalance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system caused by chronic stress will result in altered responses to ozone exposure that will be reflected by HRV.