Children's Health Articles
Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 107, Number 8, August 1999

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Long-Term Residence in Areas of High Ozone: Associations with Respiratory Health in a Nationwide Sample of Nonsmoking Young Adults

Audrey Galizia* and Patrick L. Kinney

Joseph A. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, New York, New York, USA

Abstract
Few studies have examined the respiratory effects of multiyear ozone exposures in human populations. We examined associations between current respiratory health status and long-term ozone exposure histories in 520 Yale College (New Haven, CT) students who never smoked. Questionnaires addressed current respiratory symptoms, respiratory disease history, residential history, and other factors. The symptoms of cough, phlegm, wheeze apart from colds, and a composite respiratory symptom index (RSI) were selected as outcome measures. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1), forced expiratory flow rate between 25 and 75% of FVC (FEF25-75), and forced expiratory flow rate at 75% of FVC (FEF75) were obtained by forced expiration into spirometers. Ozone exposure was treated as a dichotomous variable, where subjects were assigned to the high-exposure group if they lived for 4 or more years in a U.S. county with 10-year average summer-season daily 1-hr maximum ozone levels Greater/equal to 80 ppb. Lung function and respiratory symptoms were analyzed by multiple linear and logistic regression on ozone exposure, controlling for covariates. Lung function was lower in the group with high ozone exposures: differences were statistically significant for FEV1 [-3.1%; 95% confidence interval (CI), -0.2 to -5.9%] and FEF25-75 (-8.1%; CI, -2.3 to -13.9%), and nearly so for FEF75 (-6.7%; CI, 1.4 to -14.8). Gender-specific analyses revealed stronger associations for males than for females. The symptoms of chronic phlegm, wheeze apart from colds, and RSI were increased in the ozone-exposed group, with odds ratios of 1.79 (CI, 0.83-3.82), 1.97 (CI, 1.06-3.66), and 2.00 (CI, 1.15-3.46), respectively. We conclude that living for 4 or more years in regions of the country with high levels of ozone and related copollutants is associated with diminished lung function and more frequent reports of respiratory symptoms. Key words: chronic effects, epidemiology, human, lung function, ozone. Environ Health Perspect 107:675-679 (1999). [Online 2 July 1999]

http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1999/107p675-679galizia/abstract.html

Address correspondence to P.L. Kinney, Joseph A. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, 60 Haven Avenue, New York, NY 10032 USA. Telephone: (212) 305-3663. Fax: (212) 305-4012. E-mail: plk3@columbia.edu

*Current address: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 2, New York, New York, USA.

This work was supported by grant HR48619 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and by contract 92-1 from the Health Effects Institute. The authors wish to thank B. Leaderer, W. Beckett, and S. Fowler at Yale University, without whose assistance the field measurements at Yale would not have been possible.

Received 22 April 1998; accepted 23 April 1999.

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