Studies & Reports
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Research Shows Disproportionate Rate of Coronavirus Deaths in Polluted Areas
COVID-19 can be made more serious by a specific type of industrial emission called hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs, according to peer-reviewed research by ProPublica and researchers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, published on September 11, 2020 in Environmental Research Letters. Their focus on HAPs builds upon…
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Thunderstorm-Related Respiratory Illnesses Among Older Adults
JAMA Internal Medicine released a research letter on August 10, 2020, examining emergency visits for thunderstorm-related respiratory illnesses among older adults. The study was designed “to determine whether increases in emergency department (ED) visits for acute respiratory illnesses occur among Medicare beneficiaries in the days surrounding thunderstorms across the continental US.” The researchers note this…
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ASHRAE Releases Report on Damp Buildings, Human Health and HVAC Design
ASHRAE, formerly known as the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, has released a report titled “Damp Buildings, Human Health and HVAC Design.” The report take an in-depth look at dampness-related health risks in buildings and provides details of symptoms of dampness. It also provides suggestions to improve HVAC systems and describes the…
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Economic Cost of Respiratory Conditions for Adults in America
In Morbidity and Mortality Week Report’s July 2020 edition, an article examines the economic cost of respiratory conditions for adults in America. The study focuses on asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and looks at employed adults over 18 between the years of 2011 and 2015. Researchers found that “the annualized total medical expenditures,…
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Lessons Learned from a Decrease in Asthma Emergency Department Visits During the COVID-19 Pandemic
On August 4th, researchers from the National Health Service published an article in The Lancet: Respiratory Medicine on “COVID-19 and preschool wheeze care: lessons learned.” The authors explain that, “The pattern of increasing visits to the emergency department by children younger than 5 years with preschool wheeze and other respiratory conditions has been disrupted by…
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Study Suggests Type of Asthma (Allergic vs. Non-allergic) Impacts COVID-19 Severity in Adults
Researchers Zhu et al from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed data from 492,768 participants in the UK Biobank, which stores biologic samples from participants and is linked to their medical records. The researchers found 65,677 participants had asthma and 641 patients had severe COVID-19. “After adjusting for…
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Largest Cohort Study Yet Affirms No Increased Mortality with COVID-19 in Asthma Patients
Published on July 8, 2020, in the journal Nature, authors Elizabeth J. Williamson et al, reviewed results of the largest cohort study conducted by any country to date. They looked at risk factors connected to 10,926 COVID-19 deaths in the UK. They found that “COVID-19-related death was associated with: being male…; older age and deprivation…
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Prevalence of Asthma in Children with Developmental Disabilities
JAMA Network Open features an article in its June 2020 edition estimating asthma prevalence “by various disability categories and developmental delays in a diverse sample of the US pediatric population.” In order to do so, researchers collected data from a population-based cross-sectional study of 71,811 families with children. They found that “U.S. children with various…
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Study Examines Effects of Antibiotic Use in Children on Asthma Incidence
The March 2020 edition of The Lancet includes an article examining the connections between antibiotic use in infancy and risk of asthma. Researchers used administrative data “on annual rates of antibiotic prescriptions and asthma diagnoses to assess the association between antibiotic prescribing” at less than one year of age and asthma prevalence at ages one…