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C-Reactive Protein from Dried Blood Spots: Application to Household Air Pollution Field Studies
Citation:
Young, B., J. Peel, T. Nelson, A. Bachand, J. Heidescheidt, B. Luna, S. Reynolds, K. Koehler, J. Volkens, D. Diazsanchez, L. Neas, AND M. Clark. C-Reactive Protein from Dried Blood Spots: Application to Household Air Pollution Field Studies. INDOOR AIR. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, 30(1):24-30, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/ina.12603
Impact/Purpose:
This manuscript makes a modest contribution to the further development of field research methods using dried blood spots collected by a simple finger stick that cannot acquire or process larger blood samples. The field study and subsequent data management were entirely conducted by independent extramural investigators. None of the subsequent data is in the custody of EPA. As an NIH funded study, data will be made available to the public.
Description:
Household air pollution (HAP) is estimated to be an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but little clinical evidence exists and collecting biomarkers of disease risk is difficult in low‐resource settings. Among 54 Nicaraguan women with woodburning cookstoves, we evaluated cross‐sectional associations between 48‐hour measures of HAP (eg, fine particulate matter, PM2.5) and C‐reactive protein (CRP) via dried blood spots; secondary analyses included seven additional biomarkers of systemic injury and inflammation. We conducted sub‐studies to calculate the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) in biomarkers collected over four consecutive days in Nicaragua and to assess the validity of measuring biomarkers in dried blood by calculating the correlation with paired venous‐drawn samples in Colorado. Measures of HAP were associated with CRP (eg, a 25% increase in indoor PM2.5 was associated with a 7.4% increase in CRP [95% confidence interval: 0.7, 14.5]). Most of the variability in CRP concentrations over the 4‐day period was between‐person (ICC: 0.88), and CRP concentrations were highly correlated between paired dried blood and venous‐drawn serum (Spearman ρ = .96). Results for secondary biomarkers were primarily consistent with null associations, and the sub‐study ICCs and correlations were lower. Assessing CRP via dried blood spots provides a feasible approach to elucidate the association between HAP and cardiovascular disease risk.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: C-Reactive Protein from Dried Blood Spots: Application to Household Air Pollution Field Studies