Occupational and environmental medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Traffic-related air pollution and incident asthma in a high-risk birth cohort.
The risk of incident asthma and bronchial hyper-reactivity associated with early life exposure to traffic-related air pollution has not been fully elucidated. We aimed to evaluate the hypothesis that the risk of new onset asthma is positively associated with early exposure to traffic-related air pollution in a well-characterised high-risk birth cohort. ⋯ Modest elevations in exposure to some traffic-related air pollutants during the year of birth are associated with new onset asthma assessed at age 7. That significant associations were revealed in spite of a limited sample size emphasises the strengths of a high-risk birth cohort model, along with individual air pollution exposure estimates and well-characterised data on covariates and outcomes.