Detalles del proyecto
Description
PROJECT SUMMARY
Uranium (U) is a naturally occurring element potentially associated with cardiovascular health outcomes. Across
the United States (US), U is released into the environment through wind and water erosion, as well as
anthropogenic mining, milling and other forms of U processing. Importantly, U is ubiquitous in American Indian
(AI) communities, where the cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden remains disproportionally high, and U
exposure via drinking water remains a concern. While the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for U in public
water systems (30 µg/L) took effect in 2008, no MCL was regulated in the US prior to this time, and AI
communities relying on private wells for drinking water are not regulated. The Strong Heart Study (SHS), a
prospective study of CVD among AI communities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona and Oklahoma,
represents an important population to understand the extent and impact of U exposure on health outcomes. This
requires a comprehensive assessment of both water and internal dose U exposure, including U measured in
urine. However, urinary U data is only available in a kinship-based extension of the SHS, those comprising the
Strong Heart Family Study (SHFS), and there is need to estimate this exposure across the entire SHS community
to identify those with elevated U exposure and determine the long-term health outcomes. The objectives of this
study are to 1) estimate water U exposure in SHS and SHFS participants relying on existing nationwide
groundwater measurements, 2) estimate urinary U concentrations in SHS participants leveraging the
associations between drinking water U and urinary U concentrations in the SHFS, and 3) investigate if estimated
U exposure (water and urinary) in the SHS and SHFS is linked to CVD outcomes, both overall, and according to
participant region and other characteristics. Water U exposure estimations (Aim 1) will rely on community water
system estimations of U concentrations derived from the US EPA, the National Uranium Resource Evaluation
Hydrogeochemical and Stream Sediment Reconnaissance database, which includes 335,547 sampling locations
across the contiguous US collected from 1975 to 1980; the USGS National Water Information System, which
provides water-resources data on over 1.9 million sites across the US; the Strong Heart Water Study, a pilot
study of household water U measures (n = 441); and the USGS Reconnaissance study. These datasets will be
used to assign water U measures to household locations. For Aim 2, the relationship between estimated water
U exposure and urinary U concentrations in SHFS will be used to predict urinary U values in SHS participants
with machine learning approaches. For Aim 3, we will investigate the association between estimated water and
urinary U concentrations with both clinical and subclinical cardiovascular outcomes in SHS and SHFS
participants. This work will estimate U exposure across the entire SHS, identify populations at increased risk of
U-related CVD outcomes, and inform interventions to reduce water U exposure in AI communities and other
communities equally affected by U exposure across the US.
Estado | Finalizado |
---|---|
Fecha de inicio/Fecha fin | 9/1/23 → 8/31/24 |
Keywords
- Cardiología y medicina cardiovascular
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