Household Air Pollution and COPD Study

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death in the United States. While cigarette smoking is one reason that COPD is increased, there are other exposures that likely contribute to health disparities and put individuals at increased risk, including air pollution, obesity, and adverse dietary patterns.

While great efforts to determine the burden of COPD worldwide have identified indoor biomass as a causative environmental exposure and international efforts to develop targeted interventions to reduce COPD prevalence and morbidity are ongoing, there has been relatively little attention to the problem of COPD in underserved, rural regions in the U.S.

A multidisciplinary team of investigators from Johns Hopkins and East Tennessee State University are coming together to understand environmentally driven health disparities in Northeast Tennessee.

A longitudinal cohort study of 100 former smokers with COPD will be conducted.

Aims of the study are: 1) To measure and determine sources of household air pollution among former smokers with COPD; 2) To estimate the effect of indoor air pollution exposure on respiratory morbidity among former smokers with COPD; 3) To explore a role of body mass and dietary intake on susceptibility to respiratory health.

Results of this study will inform the conduct of interventions to reduce heath disparities and improve the respiratory health of high-risk populations in Northeast Tennessee.

For questions about this study please contact Dr Maisonet, lead, at 423-439-4486 or maisonetnogu@etsu.edu.

ETSU Team