Childhood Exposure to Air Pollution as a Potential Contributor of Chronic Non-Respiratory Inflammatory Disorders A Longitudinal Prospective Cohort Study in Hamilton, Canada.docVIP

Journal of Environmental Protection, 2013, 4, 779-788 779 /10.4236/jep.2013.48091 Published Online August 2013 (/journal/jep) Childhood Exposure to Air Pollution as a Potential Contributor of Chronic Non-Respiratory Inflammatory Disorders: A Longitudinal Prospective Cohort Study in Hamilton, Canada Caroline Barakat-Haddad , Susan Elliott , David Pengelly 1* 2 3 1 Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Canada; sity of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada; cbarakat@utsc.utoronto.ca, elliotts@uwaterloo.ca, Pengelly@mcmaster.ca 2 Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Univer- 3 Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. Email: * Received May 13 , 2013; revised June 15 , 2013; accepted July 20 , 2013 th th th Copyright ? 2013 Caroline Barakat-Haddad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between childhood exposure to air pollution and diagnosis with chronic non-re- spiratory health outcomes in adulthood. This prospective cohort study uses data collected in the 1970/1980s from 395 children, including exposure to air pollution. Over thirty years later, a survey collected data on various health outcomes, including diagnosis with arthritis, high blood pressure, long-term skin conditions, and hay fever allergies. Logistic re- gression modeling was performed to examine the relative contribution of childhood exposure to air pollution on chronic non-respiratory health outcomes in adulthood. Childhood exposure to SO2 emerged as a significant predictor of arthritis (OR = 2.73, 95% CI 1.20 - 6.18) an